Immortal Summers of Sunnydale
by Joshua The Evil Guy
Summary: BuffyHighlander Xover. Buffy is the second oldest woman alive and Joyce and Faith are her students. Just imagine how they would have to explain it all to Giles, Willow Xander and the rest if Faith somehow had an accident where she ended up dead?
1. Chapter 1

_Disclaimers:_      Joss Whedon and UPN and the likes (now) own Buffy the Vampire Slayer and all herein characters.  The Concept of Immortality and the "Game" are concepts belonging to the Television series "Highlander" as well as the preceding movies, the TV show of which is owned by Rysher Entertainment.  A limited portion of this story, where Buffy is actually a three thousand year old Immortal was inspired by another fanfic, "The Immortal Life of Elizabeth Summers" written by Akraen.  This is only mentionable ideas rather than whole copied texts, not to mention happens very different from his story.  The concept of the Game being a fallacy was first conceived of by Steve Pantovich for his own Buffy/Highlander crossover in "Calling Out the Clan" and the whole Wandererverse Chronicles.  Anything else to mention, e-mail me.  Enjoy!

The Immortal Summers

Joyce Summers glanced at her watch for what must have been the fifth time that night.  It was only one twenty three in the morning.  Sighing, she got up from the couch and took her empty teacup to the sink, and prepared another cup of tea.  Before she had even gotten the tea bags out though, the front door suddenly burst open and a young female voice with a Bostonian accent cried out to the elder woman.

"Joyce!  Help!!" Faith shouted as loud as she could as she and the blonde beside her strained to hold the weak wooden door closed.

Joyce didn't hesitate, dropping the fuzzy "housewife" robe and racing to the front, grabbing a Celtic short sword out of the umbrella holder next to the straining door.  She stood next to the two young looking women; ready to help them fight whatever was on the other side of that door.  "Faith!  Buffy!  What is it, how do we kill it, and why are you hiding from it?" she asked, intense and then confused as she realized that it took a lot for these two women, who had faced and killed hoards of vampires not to mention several demons, to hide from anything.

Buffy Summers, typical 18-year-old teenage Senior High school student by day, and Chosen One Vampire Slayer by night, glanced at her "mother" with an absolutely withering glare that both calmed and annoyed the older looking woman.  "_Mom_," Buffy stressed the word with as much sarcasm as she could, "This is all your fault!"

"What do you mean?" the middle-aged woman asked thoroughly confused now, since instead of demons or vampires or some other type of monster outside the door, there were hundreds, maybe less, of angrily yelling adults.  "Buffy, what's going on?  Who are all these people?" Joyce asked.  Her black skimpy outfit, while great for the gym, was not something that she wanted half the people of Sunnydale, just a simple sports bra and skintight bicycle shorts.

Both slayers gave her a look that quite simply and obviously said, "Don't ask."  Grunting with the strain of holding the door against the oncoming flood of people, Buffy answered with one word, "M.O.O."

Grimacing in annoyance and understanding Joyce nodded and put her sword back and went to get dressed.  Leaving the two girls to glance at each other and shrug.  Unfortunately such action lost them some of the leverage they had gained and the door cracked open enough for several arms to reach inside.  Grunting with the strain the two managed to get the door back to the almost closed position that they had it at before.  Getting themselves comfortable, Faith turned to Buffy.

"You know B, I'm suddenly wondering why it is that first of all why we're still here, and second, why don't we save ourselves a hell of a lot of pain and trouble and kill ourselves right now." Faith helpfully suggested.

Buffy just grinned at her sister slayer and said nothing until Joyce had returned.

When she did, she was dressed in tan slacks and a conservative matching business blazer that just happened to hold a M.O.O. pin on one of the lapels.  "Ya know Mrs. S, you look really scary in that outfit, but not nearly as scary as you look in the morning before coffee." Faith teased the woman.

"Very funny, Faith.  Just for that, I'm going to be the one to kill you when we get to wherever this demon is drawing everybody to.  Buffy, are you sure all we have to do is get the demon to reveal it's true form, and then this madness will really end?" Joyce asked her "daughter".

Buffy nodded and repositioned her shoulder before answering, "Yeah Joyce, don't worry, the spell that 'Hansel & Grettle' cast over everybody will be broken, all you have to do is," unh "get it to reveal it's true form, and then we'll take care of the rest."

Joyce just nodded and grabbed her ankle length coat and the sword in the rack and then hid it in a secret patch of coat.  Then she grabbed a bat that she had set up earlier and with no more warning than that, she hit her "daughter" across the back of the head with it, immediately rendering her unconscious.  Faith, outraged turned to the woman that called herself mother to Buffy Summers.  Unfortunately, which left the door wide open for the demon controlled crowd to come in, just in time to see Joyce drive a vase over Faith's head, knocking her into unconsciousness as well.

Looking up at the mass of adults that had suddenly crowded her front foyer, Joyce Summers stared back at them with the same dead eyes that they all had.  Then in a simple monotone voice she commanded, "Prepare them," and then she turned to see two small children, two children that she had seen slain in the playground just a few days ago.

She heard their presence in her mind and understood them as they stared at her and said, "You have to protect us."  She answered, "I know, I just wish there were some other way.  Sorry honey," she added to her unconscious daughter.

She looked back at the crowd and saw Sheila Rosenberg and Principal Snyder at the literal front of the crowd, watching a few others tie up Buffy and Faith.  Then, keeping her worried thoughts silent, she left with them…to the school gymnasium.

Thirty minutes later, Joyce stared calmly and helplessly as her only daughter, her daughter's best friend, and another young woman, Amy Madison, tied to stakes around several mounds of occult books.  Buffy was just beginning to come around, while Faith was left tied up in the corner.  Joyce wasn't quite sure what they were planning on doing with her.  Willow and Amy were already awake.

"Uh…wha?" Buffy mumbled as she took in her surroundings and predicament.

_'Well, this brings back memories…'_ she thought to herself as the slayer looked down to see herself tied to a stake around kindling of books.

"Buffy, you're all right!" Willow shouted when she saw Buffy awaken.  Quirking and eyebrow at the statement, Buffy thought, _'All right is not necessarily the word that I would use quite yet Willow.'_  Instead Buffy just looked up and saw Joyce staring at her.  Focusing, she could also see the two small children that everybody in town had been so adamant about avenging for the past week or so.  _'Oh goody, the gang's all here,'_ Buffy thought.

However things went south when Amy started threatening and trying to ward off the crowd.  Buffy knew on instinct, not to mention personal experience, what Amy was planning on next.  Before the young witch could even begin the incantation, Buffy stopped her.

"Amy NO!" she shouted.  It broke Amy's concentration enough that the spell dissipated before it even began.  "Amy, I know what you were planning, but trust me, it's not the way out!"

"There is no way out Summers," Snider snarled out at her.

Buffy didn't even waste the glare on the misguided fool.  "Amy, my mom, Willow's mom, your dad, they're all under some kind of demonic spell.  We just have to get the demon to reveal it's true form.  Unfortunately, my Mom has some kind of artifact that she found in her shop a few days ago that nullifies all magics in the area.  Amy, the spell wouldn't have worked anyway, not to mention if it had there would have been no way to undo it.  Get me?"

Amy, sour faced, nodded quietly and then turned to face the dead eyed crowd, and muttered, "Might have been better than this."  Buffy quickly corrected her, "No Amy, trust me, life as a rat is _not_ better than being burned at the stake." _'I should know, I've done both more than my share of times.'_

Amy grimaced in guilt.  "Oh, yeah, sorry about that again."  Buffy just shrugged her shoulders and turned to the crowd just as her "mother" was handed the torch.

"Uh, Mom?  You, uh, maybe want to put that out.  You know it's dangerous to play with fire," Buffy pleaded with the blond haired woman.

"So is playing with the dark forces," monotoned Joyce.

"Uh, yeah.  Where's Faith?" Buffy asked surprisingly changing the subject.  Joyce paused and looked over to the corner where the dark slayer had been thrown.  She was still there and still handcuffed.  "What did you do to her? Buffy asked with a note of panic.

"I hit her over the head with a vase," Joyce replied.

"OK, so, uh, what are you going to do with her?" Buffy asked, looking Joyce in the eye.  As she did, she somehow seemed to ask a question that Joyce was the only one to understand.  "That's none of your concern young lady," Joyce answered, blinking both eyes quickly.  Buffy smiled.  Faith was already free, and Buffy had a knife in her left hand.

_'Everything ready?'_ Buffy telepathically asked Faith.

_"Almost, Giles and the rest are fighting off a whole other mob just outside, but I'm ready with the weapons when you're ready with the target."_ Faith answered in a likewise fashion.

Making a quick decision that she knew she might regret, but really hoped she wouldn't, Buffy used the knife and cut the ropes that were holding her.  A second later, she gave the signal to Joyce, who gave a likewise completely imperceptible signal back, and with that Buffy sprung into action.  She kicked the torch out of Joyce's hand, and right onto the twins that were behind this whole mess.  The both surprising and unsurprising thing about that though was that the torch passed right through the kids, and caught fire to one of the low hanging M.O.O banisters.

In the next few minutes, as Buffy cut Amy and Willow free and knocked several of the adults into safe unconsciousness, Giles' spell to reveal the demon was complete and it's spell broken.  After that, it was a matter of Faith coming in with the axe and the crossbow and a minute later, one more demon checked off in the slay column.  That was the easy part.

Hard part came in the minutes after the defeat of the demon and Willow and Amy were congratulating the Slayers on a destiny well fulfilled.  One of the morons, the ones that naturally hate and always need somebody to hate, came up with a bowie knife and Faith barely saw him diving for Willow in time to push the redhead witch out of the way, but not enough time to dodge the knife herself.

"Faith!!" Willow, Buffy, and Joyce all screamed.

It took all of Buffy's common sense and self-control not to kill the bastard when she punched him to the floor.  It wasn't until he got back up that she saw he was a vampire that had snuck in.  Buffy quickly shacked him up in what the M.O.O. people had put Faith in, and then turned all of her attention to her bleeding and dying compatriot.

"Faith, Faith!!" Buffy cried, shedding real tears as she held the dark slayer in her arms.  "Faith, don't do this!  Don't FUCKING DO THIS to me!!!  Faith, don't die on me!  Please, Faith, don't die on me.  I need you Faith, please, please don't die.  Please, please, please…." The blonde slayer trailed off into sobs as she begged her sister slayer to live.

Faith put a blood covered hand on the woman's back and whispered hoarsely, "Don't worry B…I-I'm not…not goin' anywhere.  Side's, had to save Red. 'koff, koff,'  You know me…always…got-ta be…the…hero……"  And Faith died.

When the brunette's eye's glazed over and her head rolled to one side, everyone in the room knew that she was dead.  At the sight, Willow cried out with anguish, and she didn't stop sobbing for an hour at most.  Joyce held the young girl to her and comforted her as best she knew.  Buffy was sobbing just as loud as Willow, but held the body instead.

Finally, Buffy had cried all the tears that she would allow herself for the moment and she stood up and took Faith's body with her.  "Let's go home," she muttered to the mostly empty room, only her friends and mother still there.  Oh, and Amy ofcourse.

"Buffy, is there…is there anything we can do?" Amy asked hoping to help in some way, pay back a small measure to the woman that saved her life, not to mention from being a rat for the rest of her life.

Buffy paused for a moment, and then turned to look at Joyce with a question in her eyes.  Joyce considered it for several moments and then finally gave her daughter a soulful look and nodded her head.  Buffy turned to Amy and quietly ordered, "Come with us."  Amy just nodded and fell in between Willow and Xander.

"Giles?" Buffy grabbed the counsel Watcher's attention.

"Yes Buffy?" he was at her side in an instant.

She looked up at him and stared directly into his eyes.  "Drag that sack of shit that did this with you.  I want a piece of him, just to give him a taste of the torment that I've felt here tonight." She has a dangerous look in her eye, and Giles can only nod his head and grabs Xander and Oz to help him with carting the vampire.

Joyce Summers catches up with her "daughter" and they make their way to the Summers' car in silence.  Faith remains in Buffy's arms while Joyce gets behind the drivers seat.  Joyce, seeing that Willow and Amy were making their way over to the car leans over to check on Faith.

After checking pulse, eyes, respiration, and temperature, Joyce asks Buffy, "Is she going to be OK?"

Buffy grinned and nodded.  "It was just a knife wound to the right kidney and liver.  I think it also might have opened and penetrated the right lung.  Another fifteen minutes, tops.  Which translates to Mom speak as 'not a lot of time, so hurry, hurry, hurry!"

Joyce grinned back and nodded as Willow and Amy got into the back of the Jeep.  "Hold on girls," Joyce says before peeling rubber on her way out of the parking lot.  Five minutes later, five almost terror 'Nascar-could-not-have-been-better' driving filled minutes, the Jeep pulled into the Summers' residence and the second it was in Park, Buffy was out of the car, and opening the door to inside.

Once there, Buffy took Faith's body upstairs to her room.  Then she hurriedly went downstairs to be "comforted" by the others.  Another five minutes of hugs and "It'll be OK's" later, Giles, Xander, and Oz arrived with the chained and gagged vampire.  They brought him inside, but only after Buffy ordered, "Bring that fucking asshole in here guys.  I think I'm going to enjoy this."

The men noted the dark look on the elder slayer's face as she said this, and all judged it wiser to do as told rather than to risk raising the slayer's ire anymore than it already was.  She had them dump it on top of the kitchen table.  She then led them all into the living room and sat down to wait between Joyce and Willow.

"Buffy, honey?" Joyce tried to reach the girl she felt as a daughter.  "What's wrong?  What are you going to do?"

"Buffy?" Willow squeaked, sounding very much like a scared young little girl.  The blonde turned to the young witch and smiled, easing some of the latter's fears.

"I'm waiting, Willow, I'm waiting," Buffy told her quietly, stroking the girl's crimson head softly.

"Waiting for what?" Willow asked in that little girl voice, and despite being in front of others, she closed her eyes in pleasure and leaned into the strokes Buffy was patting her head with.

Suddenly both Buffy and Joyce jerked their heads at something, though nobody else in the room could tell what it might have been.  "Never mind…" Buffy murmured and kissed Willow's forehead before getting up and heading with Joyce into the kitchen.  "Stay here." Joyce commanded.  Nobody was in a mood to argue the point, and they soon found it moot as everyone for a block heard the vampire's screams of agony, pain, and begged mercy.

Meanwhile upstairs; Faith suddenly jerked awake with a gasp of fresh life giving breath, and a buzzing in her head.  Looking around at her surroundings, (Buffy's room) and then taking in her bloodied appearance and the hole in her shirt, Faith quickly deduced what must have happened.  "Aw, _damn it_!" she cursed, falling back to the soft bed.  A much better bed than what she had forced herself to sleep on for the past however many weeks.

That was hardly the point as Faith suddenly heard an unfamiliar, almost unearthly scream emanate from almost directly beneath her.  As the image of the man who had killed her came into focus from her confused memory, Faith smiled as she got up and began to remove her stained and thoroughly ruined clothing.

The screams and near howling of pain emitted from the vampire came on and off for the next twenty minutes or so, during which Faith found a stash of her clothes she had left here earlier, which she dubiously noticed Buffy had replaced with several more modern or "softer" varieties of the outfits she had adapted to her personality (Buffy changed her clothing), and washing herself up.  Getting skewered by a knife, while familiar to the original Boston dweller, that didn't make it any less messier.  After a half hour or so of the screams, Faith was impressed when she actually heard one such scream extend to nearly five minutes.  It finally ended in a softer, yet almost grateful, unearthly demonic scream of the vampire finally being dusted.

Faith smiled and muttered to herself, "You've out done yourself B."  She was now dressed in tight dark blue jeans, a white tank top and a matching dark blue denim shirt left open.  She had put on some wool socks that she found so her feet wouldn't be freezing as she revealed her "miraculous" return to life.

Once she felt it was time, Faith made her way most of the way down the stairs, and stopped far enough from the bottom steps that she would not be seen by anyone in the living room or the dining room, yet she was out in the open if anyone went by, or up, the stairs.  Which Buffy did in the next minute or so.  Her hands were covered up to her elbows in vampire blood, and her cheeks were equally smeared.  She was walking slowly, so nobody really thought it strange when she stopped right in front of the staircase and then turned her eyes to stare straight at Faith.

Her eyes conveyed all she needed of how sorry she was, and her guilt.  Faith just grinned at her, maybe teasing a little, and shrugged at her.  Then the dark slayer stared at the golden slayer with just as much intensity that she was receiving and mouthed the words, "I'm staying."

The blonde immediately ducked her head, covering the smile that both Faith and Joyce instinctively knew was there.  Then the mask of loss and depression covered her features once more as she walked the rest of the way into the living room.

"Buffy," Willow whined in such a way that she sounded barely 3 ½ years old.  "What did you do?"

Faith almost gasped from the realization, _'Red's in shock!  Oh damn, what's gonna happen when she sees me?'_ Faith thought in fear.  Then telepathically she communicated to Buffy, _'B, ya gotta calm her down before I come out!  If she ain't ready she's gonna collapse!  I've seen it before; I didn't become a field nurse for nuthin' ya know!'_

_'Don't worry Faith, I've got it covered, right Joy?'_ Buffy replied without saying a word.

Joyce just smiled as though in sympathetic understanding at her daughter.  Joyce had returned to the group shortly before the screaming had begun, and had held Willow, who had collapsed shortly into it, throughout the ordeal of Buffy laying pain to the vampire that had killed Faith.  Joyce knew some of the thoughts running through everyone's heads.  They were partially relieved, afraid, but mostly depressed and the feelings that they would die tomorrow were that much more justified.  Relieved because of how Buffy had reacted.  She had gotten vengeance for Faith's murder from her murderer.  But she had also revealed a dark streak that none of them knew had even existed in the small blond slayer.  The truth that she could torture, let alone do it herself, even to a vampire, made them wonder if she could, or ever would do something like that to them.  It was subconscious worries for the most part; they all knew that Buffy would never hurt them.  After all, it was because of Faith's death that she did that.  What she did, not even the older woman wanted to know.

"Will, are you OK?" Buffy asked, seeing the very fragile state of her best friend.

Almost immediately something changed in the shy redhead hacker.  She straightened out of Joyce's grip, and sniffled a little, and then wiped dry her eyes and nose and then looked Buffy in the eye and silently nodded.  Buffy smiled.  There was more strength to this young one than anyone could have guessed.

"How about the rest of you?  Everybody OK?" she put forth to the rest of the room.  She got silent nods all around.  It was beginning to get on her nerves.

"Would somebody please say something?" she begged.

"Who are you?" Xander barked out.

Buffy blinked in surprise at the question.  Then she did a double take and classically responded with, "Huh?"  Xander, seeing that she didn't know what he meant, elaborated.  "Who the _hell_ are you that you can torture somebody like that?  Yeah, it was a vampire, yeah it…it kill-killed Faith.  But you of all people Buffy, you should not, can not torture somebody like that."

Buffy waited a moment to make sure he was done before answering, "It was payback, not torture."

"Huh?" came up all around the room, which effectively covered the soft snickering coming from the stairs.

"Torture is the use of pain techniques and fear to elicit information from a person or prisoner.  I didn't want information.  So it was payback.  I used fear, pain, and death to make myself feel better for not stopping the vampire in time.  Xander, there is a lot you don't know about me.  And like you said, it was a vampire.  I would never, could never hurt any one of you.  You are my friends.  That, that was one of the things I hunt and kill.  Just because I got a little satisfaction out of taking out the one that killed my sister…" Buffy paused, her voice cracking from the emotions.  "Just because I got payback instead of making it a clean kill is no reason to yell at me."

"Xander, you think you know me?  Heh, boy you have not even begun to know me.  Do you have any idea how much death I've seen in my lifetime?  Do you!?  I have seen more death, more carnage, more…_demons_ than absolutely anybody could imagine.  So as much entitled as I may be to a vacation, or maybe even Heaven, I stick around on the _Hellmouth_ fighting the good fight, saving other people's lives and the whole _fucking WORLD_, while putting my friends lives in danger!  Xander, you haven't even begun to know me."

Joyce got up from her place on the couch and went to hold her "daughter".  Buffy just collapsed into tears and sobs once Joyce's arms were around her, holding her up, holding her strong so that she could keep standing on her own.  After several moments, Joyce helped Buffy clean up the mess on her arms and face.

"Well boohoo, the slayer has a rough life.  Well guess what, _Buffy_, you aren't the only one to have a rough life!" Xander tried to counter-argue.

Before he could even begin however, Buffy looked up from her "mother's" shoulder and glared at him with an intensity that could melt a cinder block.  He caught it, and due his credit, he stared right back at her.  "Oh what, now you're going to slay me if I don't shut up, well listen up slayer, you…"

"Xander, sit down."

That single soft statement from the blonde's lips froze him immediately.  After a moment, Joyce released her and Buffy looked Xander in the eye.  "I'm not going to…" grin "…slay you Xander.  I'm going to ask that you please sit down.  I have to tell you all something.  Something that will…change the rest of your lives."

"What that you aren't the slayer, you're just our guardian angel playing a trick on us?" Xander jested.

But Buffy was all seriousness as she returned, "No, I'm not the slayer, but I'm no angel either."  Everyone was literally floored with that.  Or at least Giles and Willow were as they slid to the floor in mimed shock.  Buffy wasn't too surprised that it was Amy that asked, "Then what are you?"

She just shrugged and answered, "Typical demon hunter.  The whole strength and healing thing are things I've picked up, not to mention a whole hell of a lot of training."

Giles was the next to recover, "What-what do you mean you are not the slayer?  You-you you have been in prophesies, you've stopped the apocalypse, multiple times, and you passed every one of the Watcher's tests to determine a slayer.  Buffy, what are you talking about?  You are the slayer.  And unfortunately, now the only one left."

"Wrong Giles," Buffy interrupted.  "There's at least one other slayer out there, probably being protected from the Watcher's council and still fighting evil.  I ran into her, and took her place actually.  Her name was Elizabeth Summers, and she was at Hemery High, and she was the one to fight and kill Lothos.  I took her place and came here with Mom.  Really easy to do actually.  What with Merrick being the only Watcher to have seen her, and then a punk kid that nobody would believe named Pike.  I actually went to their wedding over the summer.  They make a really great couple."

"What are you saying Buffy, if that's who you really are?  You aren't the slayer, you aren't Buffy Summers?  Then who's '_Mom_'?" Willow asked, very confused and trying to get logic from the data she was receiving.

Buffy smiled and went to sit by Willow, who, she was pleased, did not flinch away as she did.  "Well, I am Buffy, and aside from being the slayer, being afraid of dying, and Joyce being my Mom, then yeah that's all fake.  My last name isn't Summers, well it sort of is, until I get a new surname, but I like the name Buffy, it's kinda uniquish, don't ya think?"

Willow grinned at the humor that was Buffy and nodded slightly.  Then she caught on to what Buffy had said and began stuttering and babbling anew.  "Wait, wait a minute!  Joyce…Mrs. Summers…Joyce is not your Mom?  How does that work?"

Before the overwhelmed redhead could get a full head of steam, Buffy sidetracked her.  "I'll explain everything, I promise Will.  But you should all know something first.  Faith is alive."

It took a full two minutes for those three hastily said words to penetrate everyone's brains, even Oz's.  Somehow, they timed it just so that everyone shouted at once, "WHAT!!!"

Buffy stood up and then stood next to her "mother" and said loud enough, "Come on down now Faith.  After all, this was your decision."  The last part was full of biting sarcasm.  Everyone heard the light chuckling coming from the staircase, and then standing up, everyone watched as an angel descended the steps.  Or at least they believed her to be a real angel until she came up next to Buffy and Joyce, dressed in tight blue jeans, a denim shirt, a white tank top, and gray woolen socks, minus the halo, the wings, and any to all golden glowing.

"Hey guys, how's it hanging?" Faith asked in her Boston accented swagger.  Buffy, standing next to her, elbowed her in the gut, yet didn't turn to look at her when Faith glared at her.  Shrugging, letting it go, Faith revised her greeting.  "Sorry, bad choice of words.  I meant, how's life down here?"  Faith openly grinned, as did Xander and Amy.

TBC…


	2. Chapter 2

Continued from Previous… 

"Hey guys, how's it hanging?" Faith asked in her Boston accented swagger.  Buffy, standing next to her, elbowed her in the gut, yet didn't turn to look at her when Faith glared at her.  Shrugging, letting it go, Faith revised her greeting.  "Sorry, bad choice of words.  I meant, how's life down here?"  Faith openly grinned, as did Xander and Amy.

Buffy audibly groaned and hid her eyes behind her right hand as she tried to rub the headache she was getting away.  Joyce, on the other side of the blonde was softly chuckling, trying not to go into hysterics.  Buffy looked up at her, glaring, "And I suppose you find this funny?" she questioned.

Nodding, Joyce could barely control her laughter enough to answer, "Yep."  And then she loudly laughed as Buffy muttered, "You aren't helping," to no one in particular.

Also laughing, Faith slapped Buffy on the back and said, "Hey don't sweat it B.  We know these guys.  Chances are they'll either freak and run screaming into the night, try and kill us, or say 'cool, what are you doing for lunch tomorrow?'  Right guys?"

The others not exactly in on the joke just stared dumbfounded at the miraculously resurrected girl.  Willow, the one that cared about just about everybody suddenly ran to Faith and hugged her with a belying strength coming from the petite redhead.  Faith easily accepted her, but was surprised to hear Red saying over and over, "I'm sorry Faith, I'm sorry Faith, I'm sorry Faith…"

Pulling her back some, Faith looked her in the eye, or tried to.  "Red?  C'mon Red, you ain't got nothin' to be sorry about.  It was my choice to take the knife.  Sides, I like ya too much to let ya die."

Willow started shaking her head.  "No Faith, you don't understand.  I'm sorry about hating you.  I'm sorry that I got so jealous of the time you were spending with Buffy, I'm sorry that I hated you just cause you're everything that I want to be, I'm sorry…."

"Whoa Kemosabe," Faith stopped her.  "First of all, I'm like totally forgive and forget about that.  Besides, me and B, we go way back.  And second of all…you wanted to be like me?"

Through her tears, Willow nodded.  Faith just smirked and coughed a laugh.  "Ain't that a kick?  Well newsflash for ya Red, I've always kinda wanted to be like you.  First of all, you're smart, second of all, everybody that has eyes and a brain likes you.  You're easy to get along with, and you like, or at least accept everybody, right?  I mean," Faith paused as she and Willow sat down on the couch, "look at how you treated me.  You just admitted to hating me, and still you at least gave me a shot and gave the whole "Welcome to Sunnyhell!" right along with everybody else."

Confused, Willow asked, "Sunny_hell?_"

Smirking, Faith opened her mouth to answer, but Buffy beat her to it.  "A kind of nickname for the Hellmouth Will.  At least among the more supernatural circles, like vampires, demons, the guardians chosen to guard the Hellmouth from opening and spilling out legions upon legions of Satan's armies.  Especially when they hear the town name that sits over the Hellmouth."

"Oh,"

Everyone else was still standing, having no clue how to react that the woman they had been mourning over for the past hour was alive and well, and making jokes.  Finally all the pressure got to Giles and he had to sit down.  Xander and Oz shortly followed, while Amy went over to sit next to her friend Willow, to offer whatever support she could stand.  She knew who Buffy, Faith, and Joyce were, or at the very least _what_ they were.  Her aunt after all was dating an Immortal, planning on getting married before summer.

Seeing that Amy was the least surprised by this, Buffy smiled and asked the young blond woman a question that would let her know everything was OK.  "By the way Amy, how's John Madison doing?"

Amy looked in near shock at the blonde once slayer.  "How-how do you know about him?" she asked nervously.  Buffy smiled and genuinely conveyed, "We're old friends.  Met him shortly after the Depression, when we were all on the upswing.  Faith knows him too.  Ofcourse, I wouldn't mention their relationship in front of Alison just yet.  You do know how jealous your aunts can be."

Amy smiled and realized that Buffy Summers really was a friend of her soon to be "uncle".  She nodded and added, "He's good.  Still living in Northern California with the rest of my family."  Buffy nodded and then waited for somebody to comment on what she had just shared with Amy.

Everyone was silent for over a minute, and then slowly, one by one, they all got it that Buffy knew something about Amy that none of them did, and vice versa.  It was Xander who first caught it and gave the two blonds a confused stare, but Willow was the first to comment on it.  "Buffy?" sounding scared and innocent, "How do you know Amy's uncle?  And for all of us not in on the scam or joke or whatever, could you please explain how Faith is still alive?  Please?"

Buffy grinned at her best friend and took the seat next to her on the other side from Faith.  She then took the ring that Angel had given her, the crowned heart, the Cholera ring, and then she handed it to Willow.  "Put it on, everything will be explained," Buffy told her.  Willow looked with apprehension at the ring, and then back to Buffy, she put the ring on, but Buffy made sure that the crown was the part facing her.  Then Buffy looked at Joyce, who nodded and left the room and returned a few minutes later with a strange glowing crystal.

As soon as Willow had the ring on, it flashed and her mind was just as suddenly elsewhere.  Amy, who had been watching, let out a startled gasp, and Xander, already on a hair trigger, got up to either beat Buffy to a pulp, or rescue Willow.  Both Amy and Faith stopped him.

"What happened?" Oz asked.

Buffy held up her hand for silence and just stared at Willow, until the young girl blinked and then shook her head, trying to shake loose the cobwebs.  "Whoa, what the hell was that?" she muttered/asked.

"My life.  Now, _now_ you know everything about me Willow.  I'm sorry that I had to hide the truth from you, but do you now understand why I had to?" Buffy explained.

Willow gulped and nodded, her eyes glazing over in memory.  Buffy quickly removed the ring as Joyce returned with the crystal.  "Quickly Joy, recharge it.  I have maybe a day before the window closes, maybe less."  
  


Joyce took the ring and then somehow placed it inside the crystal and then left the room once more and didn't return for some time.  The others looked after her in confusion, which seemed to be the new element in the air and was rapidly spreading as everybody sat back down to stare at the two slayers, if that was what they really were.

"OK B, what'd you do to Red here?" Faith asked.

"I showed her my life.  It's a relatively simple spell, but only those that can use or sense magic can use it.  I figured it was a good idea to have somebody back us up as we tried to explain, and in order to do that, we'd have to explain, and this just simplifies it." Buffy answered.

"You never showed me your life," Faith grumbled like any mature young adult.

Buffy just grinned.  "Well, first of all, you don't know any magic, and you can only sense what Joy and I point out to you.  Second of all, you're also Immortal, so that further complicates matters.  Besides, I told you about my life.  Whether you hear about it beside a campfire or in bed, or it's magically transcribed in your brain, it's still the same story told from the same point of view."

"It's just not the same," Faith grumbled.

Buffy and Willow just chuckled lightly and said at the same time, "Don't worry about it Faith."  Then they realized what they had just done, smiled at each other and shouted at the same time, "JINX!!"  They broke into giggles and it was Faith's turn to groan as she got up and away from the giggling girls.  "And I thought Red was bad before, now she'll be downright insufferable." Faith muttered complaining.

The girls stopped their giggling and all was serious as all three caught the glares of Cordelia, who everyone knew hated to be left out of _any _gossip, Xander, who Willow understood the best as she was, or had been, feeling what he was, betrayal, fear, and frustration from having no answers to any of his many questions, and Giles, who was the worst out of the three.

Faith, the dark, brash, arrogant and confidant slayer that was more into sex than talking, actually gulped when she caught sight of the glare that he was sending his charges.  Out of everyone to anyone in the room, she had been the only one to ever see the "Ripper" in his prime.  Giles probably didn't remember, but they had dated in college.  Faith decided this would be a good moment to remind him.

"Hey Rip, you still owe me five bucks from that bet!" Faith shouted at the Watcher.

Startled, Giles jumped at the accusation, while Buffy just grasped her forehead and groaned.  She turned to Willow and whispered, "I can't believe she hasn't let that go yet!"  Willow just grinned and giggled.

"Wh-wh-whu-wh…what?!?" Giles shouted at the "dead" woman.

"You owe me five bucks Rip.  We had a bet that I could guzzle down more bear than you, every guy on your floor, and the current school champion of the drink could.  Combined.  I might have had one hell of a hangover for the weekend, but I still won.  25 tequila shots, 57 full glass bears, not including the ones I dropped, 5 shots of moonshine, 5 shots of whiskey, _aaaannnd_ 19 full bottles of "_love potion number nine_" champagne.  I even had another beer when I got home after the bar, Rip.  So pay up or I'll beat your scrawny ass all the lung livin' way back to Liverpool."  Faith said the last part with a very distinctive English accent.

It was the accent that clicked it with "Ripper".  His face registered the shock, and every teenager in there, Oz included, wished they had a camera.  When he finally spoke, it was in a hushed, scared tone.  "My-mmmmmyyy-my God!  _Sara Fletcher_!!!  But-but-but, you can't be her!  She-she, she died saving a busload of children from a bomb!  She's dead!  _Your _dead!!" he babbled.

Faith just grinned and grabbed her hair and held it up and behind her head until it was wrapped into a makeshift bun.  Then she grabbed Giles' glasses off his nose and put them on the edge of her own.  Then in the same English accent she asked him, "So Ripper, how are you these days?  Oh yes, that's right, your daddy wants you to be one of those unflappable and arrogant bastard museum curators.  Well, can't do much for that old bean, tata and all that lollygag, hope you have fun.  Pick me up at eight!"  Then she winked at him and clicked her tongue in a just so suggestive way.

Faith just smiled at him as the shocked look remained, and then she handed him back his glasses, but she left the hair up in a bun.  She sat down next to Buffy, and Giles just followed her with his eyes, not believing that his old college girlfriend was in fact still alive and sitting right in front of him.  In fact, more than anything else, she was the one that helped to "create" the Ripper within him.

"Oh God!" Giles muttered in complete shock.  "How?  How are you still alive?  After thirty years, and at least _two_ deaths?  And why do you still look the same?  And how _in the nine hells do **you know Buffy SUMMERS AND HER MOTHER!!!**_"

Everyone in the room, save Faith and Buffy cringed away in fear at the standing embodiment of rage that Giles had become.  Faith actually smiled as she leaned forward and added in a singsong voice, "Hi Ripper, how ya been?"

The look of pure outrage and anger and quite literal "murder" that crossed "Ripper's" face was enough to make even Buffy cringe back a little.  Faith, having seen it all before, just smiled a little wider, knowing that it would annoy the Ripper to no end.  But it was only for a second before Giles was able to regain control of his anger and rage.  When he did, he asked in a controlled voice, his anger still a mask of rage, "Buffy, Faith, and Willow if you know something, I suggest that you start explaining yourselves this very instant, or you will not be "miraculously" coming back any time soon by the time I'm through with you."

At this, Buffy smiled, matching Faith's annoying grin.  "You know, you're right, he is cuter when he lets Ripper out to play," she whispered, but loud enough for everyone to hear.  They stopped giggling when they suddenly heard a very intense, low growl.  Thinking it a vampire, they turned to see Giles.  Even Faith gulped at the look of pure malice on his face.

"OK, OK Giles, calm down.  We'll tell you everything, don't worry.  We're just having some fun at your expense.  Calm down G-man." Buffy soothed the beast that Rupert Giles had become.  Giles fixed her with a death glare and snapped out, "Don't call me _G-Man_!"

At this, Buffy lost all trace of calm or understanding.  She stood up and stared Giles down with a gaze that could have melted the sun if it were possible.  "Don't you dare speak to me like that Rupert!  Don't you dare!  As much as I may look it, I am _not_ some impetuous little girl, and I have not been for a very long time!  Giles, I'm not a slayer.  I'm Immortal.  I'm over three thousand years old, nearly four thousand.  I was born in northern Europe, in what would today be Norway.  I first died at the age of fifteen, believe it or not at the hands of my husband.  I was feared, loathed, despised, and overall hated when I revived.  I lost count of how many times they killed me that day.  My own family Giles!  The people that had raised me, taught me all I knew, that I thought would love me no matter what.  And they send me off to marry a brute of a bastard that kills me as he's trying to "consummate" the marriage!" Buffy pauses to regain control of her emotions, with her being the center of attention.

Giles had sat down, and Faith was looking rather somber, but Willow was the only one that was confused.  "Buffy, I…I don't remember that.  How did you die the first time?  I mean, I understand about Immortals and everything that you've done for like the past three thousand years or so, but…that memory thing, it…it didn't show where you learned about demons or who your first teacher was, or how you died the first time."

Buffy grimaced and nodded.  "I didn't want you to see, to experience what I call the worst time in my life.  I nearly went insane from it…I-I didn't want you to see it.  Nobody should."

Silence surrounded the room as the people that called themselves Buffy's friends and comrades tried to accept what she was telling them.  Xander asked out of the blue, "Is this for real?  I mean this is not some trick or mind control thing that the new master vampire in town or whatever is doing to try and open the Hellmouth or take over the world with making Buffy insane?"

Buffy smirked and answered, "No Xander, it's real.  I'm 3,759 years old.  And I have calculated that out to the time that I was born, not since I became Immortal.  And Giles, you asked about my "mom".  She's 1,240 years old.  Faith is 94 years old.  And out of us, she's the actual Immortal Slayer.  I'll tell you the whole story.  All of you.  And I am not insane, and we have more proof and evidence that says what I'm saying is the truth than we'd like.  I let Willow see my memories because I want her to trust me again.  It's not every century that you get to be a regular girl, a superhero, and a teenager all over again and all at once."

"Speak for yourself blondie," Faith teased.  Buffy ignored her.

Xander turned to the dark slayer and asked outright, "You're really ninety four years old?"  Faith nodded.  "Huh.  My grandmother would love your moisture cream," he joked.

"It's Oolah del Franc.  I get it out of Paris, it's the cheap stuff, but it's homemade and it really keeps you fresh on a sea voyage.  I get it imported, but I could get you a case or two Xander.  I'm sure Irene would love a bottle or two for her birthday." Faith told him.

Xander did a double take.  "Wait a sec.  I was joking.  You know me.  This is me joking.  Ha, ha, ha.  I wasn't being serious.  And how'd you know my grandmother's name?"

"We were in kindergarten together.  We kept in touch after I left Boston, and that's how Buffy knew who to look for when she came into town.  I would have come in sooner myself, but we had to wait for the whole Kendra mess to be cleared up.  That and I had to perfect my cover as Faith the vampire slayer with the Watcher's Council.  Then that bastard Kakistos shows up, and I know what I can and can't take, and that hairy cloven-hoofed monster with his twenty or thirty vampire lackeys was way more than I could handle, so I came here and B and I took care of it.  Oh, by the way, Irene knows that I'm a slayer, but she doesn't have a clue about the Immortality, so next time you see her, if you feel like mentioning me, make sure that I'm in a wheelchair, if you get my meaning." Faith answered.

"And she was being serious Xander.  Faith spent most of the forties and fifties in Europe, so she probably knows where all the best restaurants, jewelry shops, fashion boutiques, etcetera all are.  And she does import quite a bit.  I should know, I end up having to pay for most of it." Buffy added.

"Do not," Faith countered.  "I still happen to have a cool mill in the banks, not to mention the mutual investments, B.  I cover my own ass as far as paying it goes.  It's just when I'm…"

"Desperate?" Buffy supplied.

"I was actually going for 'in trouble' that I call you in to help." Faith finished.

"OK, back to the subject at hand," Willow interrupted.  "How does the whole immortality thing work.  I mean, _I_ know it, but everybody else is kind of in catch up mode right now.  So how about we catch them up, kay?"

Faith and Buffy, looking chastened, nod their heads and proceed to explain about Immortals and Buffy and Faith's various adventures.

"OK.  Here's the story," Buffy began, still standing, everyone else still sitting, all looking at her.  "For as long as humanity has existed on Earth, as long as there has been civilization, as long as the demons have walked the Earth as the plague of Humanity, there have been the Immortals.  Normal men and women that pass on through the ages like days of the week, living among us, working with us, fighting for us.  They aren't gods, they aren't angels, and they aren't evil or even demons themselves.  We're just humans that can't die that easy.  Immortals are just like everybody else, some good, some bad, some evil, some fight for justice, but most are just regular people that happen to die rather violently and come back.  That's the way it works really.  We're often just found or adopted or something like that, and then we are raised as normal people.  And then one day, we die, like I said, rather violently.  After that, we stop aging, we don't get sick, we don't get scars, and any injuries we do get heal up in a matter of minutes to hours.  And we don't die.  Shoot us, an hour later we get right back up.  Stake us, blow us up, burn us at the stake, etcetera, we survive.  In fact, there is only one thing that we can't survive.  Decapitation."  Buffy paused as everyone who did not know of it, including Willow, all rubbed their necks at the thought.

"Which brings us to what Immortals do, and what they are supposed to do." Buffy said, bringing their attention back to her and the subject.  "Immortals were created by the Old Gods, with the permission of _the_ God.  Yes, God is real.  I've never actually met him, nor was I anywhere near Jerusalem two thousand years ago, but I do know that God exists.  Unfortunately, so does just about every other deity out there, not to mention every story and mythology that man came up with three thousand years plus ago.  Giles, you're right when you say that Earth didn't exactly start out as a paradise.  Exactly.  It did start out as a paradise, but this paradise was overrun by demons, the Old Ones.  What most modern people call the age of dinosaurs.  When the Old Ones and the Old Gods left Earth, they mutually agreed to leave it completely behind and to not interfere in the affairs of the mortal animals.  Humans.  Well, obviously, the demons didn't do that.  They left half breeds, vampires, and earthen demons.  To counter this, the Old Gods made the Immortals, meant to battle the vampires, the demons, and the last vestiges of the Old Ones.  Unfortunately, roughly about 10,000 to 12,000 years ago, I'm not exactly certain, the demons struck a major blow to the Immortals."

"Immortals have a power within them.  We call it the 'Quickening'.  It is very powerful and very destructive.  It is released when we are killed, and I think the theory is that if a hundred Immortals take on a thousand demons, and all of those Immortals are killed, the resulting discharge would be like a hydrogen bomb, or bigger.  Something that the demons learned though, was that if an Immortal is killed near a living Immortal, that living Immortal then absorbs the power of the quickening.  It still discharges, just the power is added to that Immortal's.  So the demons killed an old Immortal, one of the oldest of the time.  They then impersonated him, and told two of his student's this secret.  They went out, and only one came back.  From this student, the other Immortals of the world learned this.  And the '_Game_' began.  That's what the other Immortals call it, the 'Game'.  Most of the Immortals of the world believe this fallacy, where Immortals are supposed to kill each other until there is only one left.  That's the motto of the 'Game', "There can be only One."  This One is supposed to take the prize, the complete power of all of the Immortals that have ever played in this 'Game'.  They say it would be enough power to rule the world, and I'd believe that.  Only problem, it would be the equivalent of the power of any one of the Old Gods, and having met a couple of those, I can say they'd be none too pleased with that.  So, I don't play the Game.  And I know for a fact that more than half of the people out there that are in it don't want to play in it either, but they don't know about the demons or vampires, they don't know of any other way to live.  The 'Game' has been going on for more than ten thousand years, unfortunately, the oldest Immortal currently alive, is only five thousand years old.  So it's gonna take a lot more than one four thousand year old girl's word.  There's also a reason that I'm telling you all this."

"Aside from the fact that Faith "died" in front of us two hours ago?" Xander bluntly pointed out.

Buffy didn't lose any wind though.  "That too.  We were going to tell you at some point, I was just hoping that it'd be a little while longer though.  The first reason however is that at some point, an Immortal stupid enough might actually walk through town, and rather than have them show up and start asking about me, Faith, or Joy, and then they find out that one of you know us, and it's a headhunter, an Immortal that cares more about a mythical prize rather than fighting demons and vampires, then they'll kill you, just to provoke one of us into fighting him."

"But why?  I mean, it's not like we'd…" Cordelia started.

"Cordy, honey, please not now," Xander interrupted her.

Buffy smiled and answered Cordelia's question anyway.  "Cordelia, the reason that these monsters would kill you would be to anger us into losing control so that they could have an advantage.  It's _how_ they'd kill you that would be the message to us.  They'd kill you like an Immortal.  Which is why it's important that if you find out about another Immortal in town, or come across somebody you think is looking for us, that you come talk to anyone of us immediately, and we'll see if it's a friend or foe."

"Friend?" Oz put forth.

Buffy nodded.  "In case you hadn't noticed, Faith, Joy and I are all Immortals, and I'm the oldest here.  After a while, even Immortals who don't know the truth get lonely and make other Immortal friends that aren't their Teachers or students."

"Teachers and students?" Giles asked.

Before Buffy could formulate her words, Faith stood up and grabbed Buffy's shoulder.  "Don't worry B, I got this one."  Buffy nodded and sat down and Faith took her place before the group.

"B already told you that the guy that got whacked by the demons had two students.  Well, the way the tradition works, as I understand it, the old teach the new.  New Immortals are born practically every year, but it's only after these "_pre_-Immortals" die the first time that they actually get into the fight.  Well, when an older Immortal finds a newly, heh, "risen" Immortal, they take that Immortal under their wing and teaches them the ropes.  In my case, Buffy and Joyce were my Teachers, not including my first Watcher who taught me how to kill the vamps.  For every other Immortal out there, they teach them the rules of the 'Game' and how to fight and win it.  Before the 'Game' existed, as I'm told, the Teachers taught the newbies how to fight demons and win.  So, after a while you occasionally come across other Immortals and if they're after your head, you either fight, or talk'em out of it.  If they're just passing through, you buy each other some drinks and talk about yourselves.  Thus, friends.  I haven't exactly lived through the centuries, but after being a slayer and an Immortal, two secrets I can't tell anybody, not to mention having to move away from anybody real close so they don't get suspicious because you aren't aging.  Or in the unlikely event that you die very publicly.  It sure ain't easy, I'll tell ya that."

Buffy stood up then and nodded to Faith, indicating that she could handle the rest.  Faith nodded back, but instead of sitting back down by Willow, she went over to a recliner and put on some boots.

"Any questions so far?" Buffy asked, distracting them from Faith.

"Uh, yeah," Oz spoke, "What was your real name?"

Buffy raised an eyebrow, and Faith looked up from lacing the boot, while everybody else was just plain shocked by the question.  "Well Oz," Buffy began, "My _real_ name right now is Buffy Anne Summers.  If you're talking about my _first_ name that I ever had, the name that I was given when I was reborn, it was Adriana."

"_Re_born?" Oz asked.

Buffy's face froze for an instant.  She gulped and sighed.  Faith, boots in place, stood up behind her and indicated her support by putting her hand on the blonde's shoulder.  Buffy smiled at her student and nodded.  "I'm headed over to my apartment to check out.  I'll be back in an hour or so.  I'm just gonna run a quick check through the cemeteries and crypts, OK?"

"OK, don't be too long.  And leave your cell phone on.  There is a reason that I got you that for Christmas two years ago you know." Buffy chastised.

Faith smiled, and pulled said cell phone from her pocket and waved it around so that Buffy could see that it was turned on.  With that, she grabbed a coat and headed out.

Turning back to Oz, Buffy answered him as though Faith hadn't interrupted.  "After…after I was condemned by my…by the people that had raised me, I was left for dead for a long time.  Maybe only a year or two, I'm not really sure, but to me it felt more like a century.  I…I won't go into what they did.  I…I-I…"

Willow stood up and immediately wrapped her best friend with her arms.  "It's OK Buffy.  You don't have to tell us everything.  We understand.  Just give us the general facts, no details.  I promise you, we won't judge you."  Willow glared at everyone there as she said the last part, making it a promise to all of them that if they did not do as she had just said, then they would be _very_, _very, **very**_ sorry that they hadn't.

Buffy smiled at the redhead and thanked her.  Then she unwrapped herself from Willow and continued.  "After killing my body, and my soul really, more times than I care to remember, they finally just left me tied up to a rock in the middle of the sea by which we…they had lived.  Like I said, I don't remember how much time had passed by the time that I made it back to shore, but by the time that I had, the village had long since moved on and the wilderness had returned to the area.  But that was not all that I found.  No, there was a man waiting there for me.  He was an Immortal, like I was.  He knew the truth, and helped me out of the depression of guilt and fear and…loathing that the villagers had made me believe as they killed me over and over.  My name with the villagers was 'Ellisif'.  Today, in that language, it means 'demon' or some other such synonym.  When Alaekiam, my first Teacher, found me, he taught me and helped me find the faith in myself again, (no jokes Xander!), we left that place by the sea, but I still go back, every ten years or so, and I throw a rock into the waters, and I curse out every name that I knew in that ancient village."

Everyone was silent as Buffy slowly collected herself from her tirade.  She looked up at her friends, tears in her eyes from the tears of ancient pains.  "Sorry guys, old wounds you know," she muttered.

Finally she had composed herself enough to continue on.  "After some time, with Alaekiam teaching me, and traveling all over, we…we eventually became lovers.  We married once, and for a time…it was the happiest in my life.  But all things end, especially happiness.  One day, traveling through Germany, about seventy-eight years after Alaekiam had found me, we came across a pair of monsters.  One of our kind, an evil Immortal that only knew and lived the 'Game' and had ransacked and destroyed villages across the known world had teamed up with a real live demon.  Ironically, a young Chaos demon.  Alaekiam was almost a legend at that time, one of the best.  I still had yet to even fight in an Immortal duel, so the evil Immortal ignored me, leaving me to face the demon while Alaekiam and Kronos, the other Immortal's name, fought.  I remember that day very clearly…"

TBC…


	3. Chapter 3

Continued from Previous… 

Finally she had composed herself enough to continue on.  "After some time, with Alaekiam teaching me, and traveling all over, we…we eventually became lovers.  We married once, and for a time…it was the happiest in my life.  But all things end, especially happiness.  One day, traveling through Germany, about seventy-eight years after Alaekiam had found me, we came across a pair of monsters.  One of our kind, an evil Immortal that only knew and lived the 'Game' and had ransacked and destroyed villages across the known world had teamed up with a real live demon.  Ironically, a young Chaos demon.  Alaekiam was almost a legend at that time, one of the best.  I still had yet to even fight in an Immortal duel, so the evil Immortal ignored me, leaving me to face the demon while Alaekiam and Kronos, the other Immortal's name, fought.  I remember that day very clearly…"

Plains of Germany:  1589 B.C.

It was midday, just after their meal that Adriana, the "Golden Angel" as her lover, Alaekiam, had named her, and Alaekiam came across the dark Immortal.  They had stopped near a gravesite, marked as such with the symbols of undisturbed rest.  Holy ground.

The stranger had actually come from the holy ground.  He was dressed as a warrior or warlord of some kind.  His dark hair fell in long tresses, and his eyes even darker were like staring into black voids of pain and suffering.  Yet what drew Adriana's attention first was the strange markings he had on his face.  They were sharp, like a blade's edge, and darker than even his eyes.  They covered one side of his face like nothing she had ever seen.  It was one of the most terrifying things that the young Immortal had ever seen.

"Greetings," Alaekiam said to the stranger that they both recognized as an Immortal.  "What, may I ask, are your intentions, be they good or selfish?"  Her Teacher always greeted any Immortals they met in such a fashion.  He had taught her that not all Immortals were evil, and many could be trusted because they were just like her.  Sides, it was always a good one, the direct approach.

"Oh, they are most definitely selfish, my dear opponent," the evil Immortal answered in a dark, ominous, almost slippery voice.  "And, if I may ask, you are the Immortal warrior named 'Alaekiam', are you not?"

"I am," he answered.  "Who are you?"  Alaekiam had dispensed with all pleasantries and had already drawn his long sword, and put Adriana behind him.  She too drew her sword.  She knew the rules of the duel well, Alaekiam had taught her everything she knew and more, but she somehow sensed that she would need it.  Something was not right here.

"Kronos," answered the evil Immortal.  "War of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse."

Alaekiam squinted his eyes in hatred and rage.  "I know the name." He spat out.

"Good," Kronos replied.  "And I know yours.  Your power shall add greatly to my own.  I will win the prize yet!"

"Not if I have anything to say on it!  The likes of you shall never have the power of the gods!  They would sooner strike us all down than allow you to even come close to the prize." Alaekiam shouted back, removing his cloak and moving further from the holy ground.  "Adriana," he whispered urgently to his charge, "Quickly, go into the site, and remain there.  He cannot harm you on holy ground, especially not on _that_ holy ground.  Remember that.  On sites of undisturbed rest, no Immortal is allowed to do a breath of harm, lest they be struck down or cursed by the gods.  Go now!"

"I understand," Adriana answered back, still holding her sword, but racing for the marker's edge of the holy ground.  However she was halted when she saw something else coming from the graveyard.  It was large and very, very ugly.  It stood nearly eight feet to her five, and at least five feet at the shoulder.  It was well muscled, but that was secondary to the fact that it was covered in charred blackened red scaled skin and had bright glowing yellow eyes and curved rams horns that matched the sick black color of its skin.  It had actually appeared just outside of the holy ground, almost out of the ground itself, save no disturbed earth.  It glared at the small blond and smirked its annoyance and confidence.  Ignoring her, it turned to the older Immortals and spoke in a rock-grating voice to Kronos.

"_Well Kronos?  Is this the champion that you wished aid in destroying?  The last Immortal to know and believe in the old gods?_" it asked the evil Immortal.

Smiling in a cruel sadistic way that made Adriana sick to her stomach, Kronos nodded and answered back, "Yes it is, though the girl is a bit young for me.  I may take her as a slave later.  You may kill her if you wish, but Alaekiam is all mine."

Alaekiam's face grew dark at the mention of harm coming to his student.  "Adriana, run!  Get on to holy ground!" he shouted at her.

"_Adriana?_" the monster said with a very small measure of fear, but more curiosity.

"My name," the blond girl answered him with no fear rather more disgust in her voice.  The demon's gaze darkened as his eyes laid upon the small Immortal that had been told to him at his creation that would destroy him and eventually all of demon kind on Earth.

"_Have your fight Kronos, the girl is mine.  She dies this day!  I will not let the prophecy come to pass!_" the demon shouted.  Kronos just shrugged and said the equivalent of that day's "Whatever!"

Gulping in the fear that she would actually have to fight the monster before her, Adriana backed up until she stood by, with a distance of over ten feet, Alaekiam once more.  Teacher and student readied themselves, holding their swords in guard position.  The demon was still by the edge of the holy ground, but Kronos had advanced so that he was in easy striking distance of the older Immortal.

The quartet stood there at a standoff for some time before Kronos took the first swing, signaling the beginning of the fight.  Alaekiam blocked for several strikes, even taking a step back before suddenly shifting to the offensive, driving Kronos back with surprising ferocity and force.  Alaekiam believed that it would take both he and Adriana to defeat the demon that this foolish Immortal had allied himself with.  He sought a quick end to this.

The demon meanwhile had leaped into the air the second that the swords first struck.  He landed just behind Adriana and the ground shook as he landed.  The young girl lost her footing as the monster landed out of her sight, yet rather than let that hinder her as it might a more experienced warrior, she took advantage by falling to her knees and then rolling forward, away from where the demon swiped with a taloned hand where she had been but a moment before.

Growling with frustration, the demon stalked after her, swiping every chance it got, but she always managed to just get out of the way by either dodging or rolling or just running away.  When she finally realized that she had to start fighting she just stopped suddenly and turned and pointed her sword straight at it as it dove straight for her.  Surprised, the demon barely had time to stop, the sword held waiving at its neck.  Jerking back in surprise, the dark beast just smiled darkly, impressed nonetheless.  "_Not bad little girl.  I may have something to worry about after all._"

Adriana gulped and thought briefly about running off scared again.  Then she caught a glimpse of Alaekiam and Kronos fighting just behind the ugly beast's frame.  Alaekiam was flawless in all his strokes, almost seeming to be one step ahead of the evil Immortal in every move.  Yet Kronos was impressive in his own right, always managing to just barely block all of Alaekiam's attacks, and managing to swing off a few of his own, though none ever connected.

The sight gave the golden haired girl the strength to turn back to the monster, and give it an evil grin truly worthy of her master (Teacher).  When the girl stopped holding her weapon like a coward and actually faced it, the demon was actually impressed.  But when she actually grinned at him.  That was when he became terrified.  Only someone truly confident of victory could ever have that look, and the beast was suddenly very afraid of its chances to last the day.  In a rage of fear and desperation, it roared and attacked the young Immortal head on in a deadly charge.

Seeing what it was doing, reacting on instinct alone, Adriana caught the flat of the beast's head against her palm, let go of the ground with her feet, and let the charge carry her far enough so that she could easily flip over the enraged demon.  Landing on her feet, Adriana quickly turned around to face the stunned creature.  Letting the rage fully consume it, the demon bellowed out its challenge and ran full tilt at the warrior that dared to face it.

Somehow sensing that the same trick would not work, Adriana balanced herself on the balls of her feet, as taught to her by her Teacher, and held her sword in guard position, waiting to see what move the beast would make.  She didn't have long to wait.    As soon as it was in striking distance, the demon raised its right arm and using the force of its momentum it arched a punch straight at Adriana.  Seeing it, and barely reacting in time, Adriana dived backwards, and more to her movement than choice, swung her sword out and up so that it connected on the scaly patch on the arm that landed where she had been but a moment before.  Rather than cut or even loosen any of the scales, it just sparked briefly and Adriana felt like she had just broken her arm swinging at a piece of unbreakable armor, which it seemed like the scales, placed strategically all over its body, were.  The beast didn't even cry out in pain, it just growled lowly, annoyed by its miss.

Scared at this development, Adriana retook to the cowards way of thinking and began to back away, scared for her life.  And so it went for several hours.  Adriana would gain confidence from seeing her Teacher and love fighting effervescently against the evil Immortal, and then face off against the demon, only to realize that there was nothing she could really do and started running again terrified.  The fight between Alaekiam and Kronos was almost at an even stalemate.  Alaekiam's skill and experience was matched blow for blow with Kronos' desperation and desire for victory.  Half the day was gone by the time that a turning point in the dual battles was reached.

Adriana had come to the realization that she had been trying against the scales on the beast, trying to wheedle her way past its strongest points.  So what if she went after one of the unscaled parts, one of the weakest points?

Coming to her decision, Adriana quickly came to a sudden halt with the demon less than an arms breadth away from her.  Then, faster than it could react to, she ducked down and rolled backwards, while it stepped over her.  Coming up from her roll, she slashed out with her sword at one of the weak points, the unscaled pattern just above the shin just behind the kneecap.

The roar of pain from the demonic monstrosity was the loudest all afternoon, and a grin of deep satisfaction crossed the young girl's face as she saw lines of pussing green show where she had cut.  Alaekiam also heard the roar and held a grin himself as he redoubled his efforts against Kronos.  Kronos, distracted by his ally's cry, suddenly felt very nervous about his chances as the Immortal he had come after suddenly seemed to get twice as strong.  Scowling, he stopped playing around and actually started trying to kill the ancient one.

The screaming demon turned, as well as it could, on its heel to see Adriana still crouched behind it.  Seeing this as her possibly only chance, Adriana slashed upward along the demon's unscaled side as it started to turn towards her.  Completing the move, as she finished the upward slash, Adriana saw her striking point, and drove her sword nearly to the hilt through to the demon's heart between some patches of the scales.  Yet before she could retrieve her weapon, the demon knocked her back some twenty feet with a massive backhanded strike.

Seeing what happened to his charge, Alaekiam lost all focus save for her.  He screamed, "Adriana!!" right before Kronos ran him through.  Yet before the evil one could take advantage of it, the sword was withdrawn and Alaekiam kicked him far enough away that he could still make it to Adriana.

The young blond got up, unhurt save for a massive ache on her face, and saw her Teacher, injured, limping as quickly as he could to her.  She smiled, believing him to have won, yet her smile faded when she saw the demon in it's death throes leap at the unprepared Immortal and slashed him across his back, causing him to scream again in agony.  The slash also caused the man to lose his sword.  Paralyzed into shock, Adriana didn't see Kronos coming up from behind the demon, his own sword at bear.  Not until it was far too late did she catch Alaekiam's eyes, and a million different emotions, messages, and words were conveyed in that briefest of moments.  The most important of which was that he knew he was about to die, and the he loved her more than anything else in the world.  She began to cry.  Yet it was when he cried out to her, yelling her name as loud as he could, that she saw Kronos.

"ADRIANA!!!!"

"No!"

And then nothing.

Adriana stared in horror as Alaekiam's lifeless, headless body slowly began to glow with a bluish white that she had never hoped to see on him before.  The demon was dying, it knew as much, and being right next to a quickening as it occurred was no way to increase his chances.  He began to crawl away, but he was stopped at the sight of two small legs.  Adriana.

Screaming her outrage over the lightning storm that was her Teacher's quickening, Adriana withdrew her sword from the demon's gaping chest as though from water.  And she proceeded to cut the beast to pieces.  Ugly, gory, slimy pieces often no bigger than her own hand.  At first just through the unprotected pieces, yet as her rage grew so did her strength and soon even the armored protected scaled patches were nothing more than pieces under her sword.

When she came out of her rage, the demon nothing more than spots of green slime scattered all around the clearing, the quickening was long since finished and Kronos had recovered enough to regain his sword and watch the last few moments of Adriana's tantrum.

When she noticed him looking at her, smiling evilly in the way that he did, she scowled back at him, dark enough that he actually lost his grin.  "Well done, well done young one," the evil Immortal complimented her.  "I'm somewhat impressed.  Too bad that you have no one to share the victory with.  Perhaps I could take you on as a student.  Yes, I could certainly teach you a thing or two.  And I can assure you, I'll bed you much better than this bastard ever could."

As the final insult struck home, something changed forever in Adriana.  She had tapped into a rage, a power to kill the demon, and then tried to hide it away afterwards.  Alaekiam had warned her of what such a power could lead to, and how an uncontrollable rage could be more a liability than a benefit in battles.  What Kronos had done, unknowingly, was allowed her to tap into this power completely unchecked.  He soon discovered, however, how great that power truly was.

Holding her demon blood covered sword at her side, Adriana's face regained the look of rage that she'd had while dispensing with the demon, and she felt something break within her.  "Defend yourself!" she shouted Alaekiam's one warning to all those he was about to kill.  Kronos actually had the audacity to smile at her, believing himself to be invincible to defeat at the hands of one so young.  He was soon proven mistaken when she ran straight at him and began to slash at him faster than he could mount a defense against.

He decided to try and provoke her into a mistake.  "Very impressive little girl!  I hope that you're just as lively when I take my pleasure from you." He shouted at her.  She didn't respond in the slightest as she just kept hammering past his defenses.  Finally she saw her opening as he was bringing his sword down to block, she suddenly reversed her stroke so that her sword went from an up slash to a down slash on the monster's right, un-tattooed, side of his face.

She struck home as she cut a straight line over his eye with her demon ichor covered sword.  He screamed in the agony of hell and dropped all defenses as he held his burning, injured eye that he could somehow sense was not healing as it was supposed to.  As the dark warrior keeled over in pain, a flash of sanity reached her in her rage, and she knew that Alaekiam would not want her to get his vengeance, rather to leave it to a more worthy warrior, one that could not have their innocence slain by sending this creature to the hell that he belonged in.  So she did not take his head.  Instead she kicked him onto his back, and drove the demon blood sword to the hilt through his chest and into the ground, pinning him there.  He sat there gasping for a moment, and then died.

Snarling in revulsion, she took Kronos' sword and drove it with a surprising strength through his forehead, to the hilt and into the ground.  Hoping that that would hold him long enough for her to complete her purpose, Adriana stood up and turned her back on the dead Immortal and went to Alaekiam's body.  There she cried until long after the sun had set behind the mountains.  Kronos never woke up while Adriana was in the valley.

The next morning, after having cried herself to sleep by Alaekiam's corpse, Adriana woke, and prepared her Teacher's body for burial, the way that he had shown her.  She buried him in the center of the site of undisturbed rest, and as deep as she dared go, seven hand-lengths.  She then said the prayers at midday, after having filled in the burial, as Alaekiam had instructed her.  She took Alaekiam's sword as her own and gathered their supplies.  She considered once more before she left taking Kronos' head, but she decided that he would be far worse (or was it better) off if she just left him there to wake up and escape on his own.

At nightfall she left, not caring that she did not really know what direction she was going in, just wanting to get away from the place where she had left her first true friend, her first true love, and the greatest Teacher she would ever have.  A week later, Adriana considered what had happened and came to the irrefutable conclusion that she needed to change her name.  Alaekiam had once told her of an animal in a far off land that he had once seen.  It was large and nearly unstoppable and when it ran it sounded like thunder.  He called it Buffalo.  Shrugging as she thought of it, even though she was absolutely nothing like the animal that he had spoken of, she would always need something to live up to.  '_Well, I can be sure that no one has ever thought of the name _Buffy_ before…_' 

TBC…


	4. Chapter 4

_Continued after Previous…_

Sunnydale, CA Summers house, 1999:

Buffy slowly came back from her memory to the present and looked at everyone in turn after the end of her recap.  Willow was the embodiment of sympathetic pain and understanding.  Giles had long since lost his rage over the fact that his charge had been hiding something like this from him, now had a new look of rage on his face.  If she had to hazard a guess, she would imagine it to be rage at the other Immortal, Kronos that had killed her first Teacher.  Cordelia surprisingly had tears streaming down her face in small rivulets, ruining what little makeup she still had on, and Amy joined her in silent tears.  Xander still looked confused by something, yet he also had tears upon his face.  Oz was the only one to have little or no outward emotions.  Well, except to the trained eye.  Just looking at him, Buffy could tell that he too was enraged by what Kronos had done and was.  Yet there was an also subtle amount of fear leaking through his mask.  Buffy immediately understood.

Just to be sure, when Willow had first brought her attention to Oz, Buffy had done some quiet background checking on the young man.  He was very impressive academically, and showed keen interest and aptitude for various types of music.  Yet there was this one little incident when he was five years old.  He had lost his temper at his father for something that probably not even he remembered.  He then began to hit his father over and over.  Not really causing any damage, but surprising enough to make the older man take a few steps back.  While he was one step away from the edge of a cliff.  Psychological tests indicated that Daniel had blamed himself and his temper.  So he sealed himself off from the world and became the "cool" unflappable Oz that he is today.

He's afraid of losing control, Buffy mused as she registered the fear. Shaking her head in silent pity for the traumatized werewolf, Buffy turned her attention to Xander's confusion.

"What's wrong Xander?  You look confused." She asked.

Startled, Xander jumped slightly, "What?" he asked.  Then realizing the question, "Oh, uh I was just kinda wondering why you came up with the name _Buffy_ three thousand years ago and you still use it today.  And how did this Alai Kea-yum know about Buffalo back then if he was in Europe?"

Buffy grinned impishly and answered his question.  "Remember I said that Alaekiam was already pretty old and experienced?" They all nodded.  "Well, he was old enough that he could have swam from the America's to Europe, or maybe even crossed the Continental bridge between Asia and Alaska a couple times.  Or maybe it had something to do that he was from Atlantis."

Everyone did a double take on that.  "Atlantis!!" they all shrieked at more or less the same time.  "Buffy that's impossible, Atlantis is only a myth!" Giles exclaimed.  Buffy kept her grin and answered back, "Right, like vampires, demons, Immortals, and gods are myths.  Giles, trust me.  Besides, Atlantis wasn't exactly a lost continent or anywhere really near the Bermuda triangle.  It was actually a shipping company of evolved humans that covered the entire world.  Alaekiam never told me the real name of the company, but he told me that the ruin of it was the flood.  Oh, that was also ahead of my time, but I can guarantee you that it happened."

Everyone just sat in stunned silence around the Summer's living room.  Amy, the most at ease with discussing things about and with Immortals, was the first to recover and asked Buffy another question.  "Buffy, how did the slayers even come to be if you weren't…uh, aren't one and Faith is…or was?  Know what I mean?" Amy asked.

Buffy grinned and nodded.  "Yeah, I know what you mean.  And it's actually kind of a long story, but I'll try and shorten it, even if only for Xander's ease of thinking."

"Hey!"

SMACK  "Shut up dweeb boy!" Cordelia yelled at Xander after hitting upside the back of his head.

Rather than risk yet another argument with his girlfriend, Xander just shut up and listened to Buffy.

"All right, as simple as I can make it, a thousand and few hundred years of living, running, fighting, and demon hunting later, I found myself in Greece in about 200, 250 B.C." Buffy began.  "I had heard of a new breed of demon that had begun to spread around the area.  They were called _Bacchi_.  Basically, they were a breed of vampire newly created by this demonic Greek God Bacchus."

"The Greek God of wine and pleasure?" Giles interrupted with a peculiar tone.

Buffy smiled at him and shook her head.  "Wine?  Whoa yeah!  Pleasure, sure if you count undead orgies as pleasure."  Buffy spared a glare at Xander, as though daring him to comment.  He wisely kept his mouth shut.  Though he did blush a very interesting shade of pink.

"Anyway, while I was staying in a small town called Potadia, I had the unmentionable gall to hang around long enough for some slave traders, slash ugly disgusting pig shit jerk offs with whips and horses, to come by town and decide to pick up some "merchandise"." Nobody missed the tone of emphasis she placed on the last word.  "Well, naturally I tried to fight them off.  Yet me being just a regular girl, and without any particular weapon of choice at the time, I tried to fight them off as best I could.  They were getting ready to make an example of me by the time that we got to the edge of the forest.  Luck would have it that a warrior was just passing through on her way home."

Buffy was interrupted once again, this time by Xander, though Amy and Cordelia each held wide eyes themselves.  "Wait a second, wait a second!  This warrior that just happened to be passing by was a _woman_?"  Buffy nodded, hiding her smile.  "_Potadia??!!?_" he near screeched.  Buffy nodded once again.  "And Greek gods are really real?  Myths and everything in them are real?"  Buffy scrunched her face and shrugged.  "Sometimes things get a little muddled from the truth.  It really happened a little differently than the "textbook" version of myths, but yeah, gods and all of that are real, and before you ask, Kevin Sorbo really _is_ Hercules.  We keep in touch now and then."

Xander was just left blinking after that.  Buffy grinned full bear and continued.  "Anyway, after this warrior kicked all of the slaver's asses back into their respective necks, I was more than a little impressed and got the family that I was staying with to say that I was their daughter so that it wouldn't look so fishy to the warrior."

"WHAT WAS HER NAME??" Amy suddenly exploded, startling even Buffy and causing everyone to jump just a little.

Stifling the laughter that started bubbling soon after, Buffy shook herself and answered, "Jean (French pronunciation), but the English translation comes to roughly…Xena."  Dead silence.

Continuing, "As I was saying, I made it seem as though I were a real member of the village and then I started bugging her to take me on as a student.  That's what Immortals do.  They learn everything they can about fighting or whatever they need to in order to survive.  Having nowhere near the fighting skills of this warrior…Xena, I desperately wanted to train under her.  By the way, in case you are wondering, yes that Halloween special where Gabrielle got turned into a Bacchi vampire really did happen, but I wasn't the one turned.  I'll leave it at that."

"It took a lot of convincing, not to mention following Xena to her home, which was in Macedonia, more than one hundred miles to the north.  After a hell of a lot of sweet-talking on my part, she agreed and we started traveling together.  She never found out my secret, the Immortal one, and she taught me almost every single one of hers."

"So that whole deal with the Xena scrolls…?" Xander trailed off, finishing the question with his eyes.

Buffy nodded.  "I always thought I had a talent for writing.  Turns out it was a little drab and too mushy for Hollywood.  Only about a tenth or less of the TV show is anywhere close to the truth.  Yes, Xena and Hercules knew each other, and yes they teamed up to release Prometheus, no they did not have the jones for each other and no they did not sleep together even once.  Hercules' wife Deanera and children did not die before he met Xena, but yes Hera did kill them.  Yes we went to China and India and Rome and no we did not go to heaven and hell to release Callisto's soul because the only resemblance Callisto had to anybody back then was an Immortal I killed that killed my boyfriend.  He was _only_ a boyfriend.  And Giles, I have been married thirty seven times total if you were wondering.  Any more questions?"

Almost immediately every hand went up, and soft chuckling could be heard at the entrance to the living room.  Buffy whirled on the sound and stopped and grimaced as she saw Joyce Summers standing there with the ring in her fist, and her other hand covering up her mouth to try and hide her laughter.  "Oh shut up," Buffy drawled to her "mother".

Rather than doing as the young looking woman asked, Joyce just walked into the room and handed her the ring, which Buffy immediately put back on and began to mutter something under her breath.  Joyce sat down in a rocking chair opposite the couch, just to the left of the TV and waited for the blonde to finish.  When she did, everyone, including Joyce was staring at her.  "What?" she asked.

Joyce just smiled and raised her hand.  Frowning, Buffy looked pointedly at the other blonde.  "Have you gotten to my part of the story yet?" Joyce asked.  Sighing in exasperation, Buffy shook her head and answered, "No, I'm still on Greece and the origin of the slayers."

"Oh," came the quiet response.

"I repeat", Buffy repeated, "any questions?"

Xander blurted out, "_You_ were Gabrielle?  _The_ Gabrielle?  The Xena scrolls show, the whole bit, it's all for real?"

Buffy just shrugged and nodded, saying, "Well, yeah, except for like I said what Hollywood changed.  I did write down most of my adventures with Xena, and I was part of the expedition that unearthed them in 1943, though it took a lot longer and a whole lot more trouble that I would have initially liked.  And yes, Hercules really is Kevin Sorbo.  He asked my permission to use the scrolls to create a branch off from his show a couple years ago.  I really didn't have a problem with it since he was included in a number of them."

Cordelia asked, "You said you weren't as strong then as you are now, is that cause of lifting a whole lot of weights for two thousand years or something else like magic?"

Buffy raised an eyebrow, impressed at the question and Cordelia's observational skills.  "Actually I was about to get to that part Cordy.  But in short, magic.  Specifically, Olympian magic.  Let me elaborate." Buffy hastily added.

"About ten years after Xena and I started traveling together, I had pretty much picked up everything that she could have taught me and a little bit more." Buffy began.  "So things were actually quieting down on the whole warlord, gods-plots-to-destroy-humanity, and petty squabbles between tribes of Amazons and Centaurs front, so that either left settle down, or find something else to fight.  That was when were approached by Zeus _and_ Hercules.  Apparently several demons had gotten it in their heads to open a Hellmouth in downtown Athens by setting up to sacrifice the entire populace of Greece _as_ vampires.  So, Xena and I went into the vampire slaying business, occasionally helped by Hercules and various other friends.  While we did stop the entire countryside from being overrun by the vampires and Bacchi, they still grew in numbers until there were well over a thousand by a time."

"Xander, do you remember the Xena episode where she took on the entire Persian Infantry by herself while Gabrielle was poisoned?" Buffy asked suddenly.

Surprised at the change of pace, Xander nodded dumbly.  "Well, that actually happened.  Only I wasn't poisoned.  I was gutted through by that spy with a poisoned sword.  I was healed within minutes, but Xena didn't know I was Immortal so I had to keep stabbing myself every time she wanted to change my dress wounds.  And Xena actually took out more than half the Persian Infantry and drove them back.  Over five hundred men by herself.  There were a thousand vampires."

"I myself was nowhere near as strong as Xena was, nor could I ever be because of my size.  So I went before six of the gods and Hercules, who had been made a god himself.  I told them who and what I was, which they ofcourse knew, and I told them that I wanted to help Xena, but I couldn't if I wasn't at least as strong as her.  So I asked them to bless me to be just as strong as a vampire, just to make things a little more even.  They did better."

"The gods that I spoke with were Zeus, Hercules, Artemis, Aphrodite, Ares, Cupid, and Hera.  They not only blessed me with the strength and skills that I have today, they blessed another girl, a mortal girl named Alika.  She was the first Slayer.  The fates then decreed a prophecy, '_Golden Slayer, timeless through the ages, warrior, Amazon, student, and Teacher.  North of Isles, land of Eire, shore of Loch Shoal, Mother witch and sacrifice nell.  Student, friend, ally, and mother will she be.  Time after the ages, the Dark Slayer, one meant to die yet will live through the ages, friend, lover, sister, enemy, wife of two.  End of Ages, time of the Gathering, your forces will come to aid you and give you your power and your army.  Jester and Knight, Lover and witch, Princess and Seer, Angel and demon.  You will win if you have the faith.'_"

At the blank and confused stared, Buffy shrugged, "Hey, they got me with it too.  It took me nearly four hundred years later before I even began to figure out what it meant."

"And this is where I come in." Joyce spoke up, drawing everyone's attention to her.

"Oh yeah!" Willow bubbled, suddenly excited as the dawning of realization crested her face.  "Mother witch and sacrifice nell.  Student, friend, ally and mother will she be." Willow quoted from the prophecy.  She stopped as the look of confusion returned.  "Sacrifice nell?" she asked.

Joyce just shrugged and muttered something about different times before taking up the story with how she and Buffy first met.  Buffy made it a point to sit down where Joyce had been sitting as the younger Immortal took the floor.  A small staring contest was waged before Joyce just finally let it go and returned to facing the group.  As Joyce Summers told her ancient tale, they all thought they saw her eyes glow from within, with an inner light that was warm and carrying and caught them up in it.

"My real name is Joy Thatcher.  Thatcher because that was the job that my father held, while I "grew up" to be a midwife and a witch.  I suppose that I was born around 750 A.D, some time around then anyway.  Or at least that was when the Druids found me.  Buffy already explained that Immortals are never really _born_, we are just found by someone, or adopted into a family.  Well, I was raised by a tribe of Druids, on the northern shores of today's Britain Island, not too far from Scotland of today.  Please keep in mind that this all happened well over a thousand years ago, it was a very different world.  It was ruled by very different rules, different people, the same places with different names, and different morals."

"My life, our lives, were very simplistic back then.  We lived in harmony with nature, taking of the animals and the land as much as we needed, never anymore than was absolutely necessary.  We farmed, we hunted, we lived.  Oh we did a lot more than just exist.  We tried to understand nature, the universe, the heavens, everything around us.  We made up stories, we told our own over campfires, and we learned.  Until the Romans came."

"That was how I met Buffy.  She came with the second fleet of Romans to arrive on the Isle.  She wasn't one of the warriors that were seeking to dominate us as part of the Roman Empire, no, she was there to stop the Romans, or delay them as much as possible.  She was actually pretending to be one of the slaves for one of the higher-ranking general's.  Until she killed him that is."  Joyce paused as Buffy held a huge grin on her face and everyone else, save Willow, was holding back gasps of shock.  "When the first of the Romans arrived, the warriors of our land barely drove them back to their home, and it was only to the aid of a foreign stranger that was prophesied to come and help us by the elders of my tribe, the High Druids."

"Wait just a second here," Xander interrupted once again.  Cordelia hit him upside the head again.  "Ow!  What was that for?" came his immediate response.  "Don't interrupt again!" Cordelia threatened.  Xander looked defeated for a second before turning a hopeful eye to Buffy.

Sighing and rolling her eyes, Buffy asked exasperated, "What is it Xander?"

"Just what was this "foreign stranger's" name?  Just curious." Xander asked.

Buffy and Joyce exchanged another glance, Buffy laughed a little and confirmed the boy's suspicions by answering, "It was Hercules Xander.  Which by the way was how I found out about what the Romans were doing in Britannia.  And why I was actually _with_ the second fleet of Romans, so I could help out.  Any more questions right now?"  They all shook their heads to the negative.  "Good."

Smiling and shaking her head wryly, Joy continued.  "Anyway, like I was saying, after the first wave of Romans were driven back, we got the idea that some of us should move away, incase they returned, they would find nothing to conquer and go home peacefully.  So my family and I, along with more than half our tribe, went across the way to Eire, or Ireland and we settled on the north shores of Loch Shoal."  Joyce paused, waiting to see if Willow or anyone else would comment.  When they did not, she resumed.  "When the Romans actually landed and started to build their monuments where we once resided, we got kind of desperate.  We started to ask for aid and guidance from the Old Gods, something not many of us did or even believed in then.  It was when I turned thirty-five that we finally decided to resort to using a sacrifice to get their attention.  Before we could even begin the ceremony however, our village was attacked."

"I'll give the Romans credit, they knew how to strike, and they knew how to do it well.  I was killed by the tip of a Roman saber through my heart, as I was trying to hide the children of our community.  I woke up several hours later, not believing that I was alive and healthy.  The village was destroyed, but the children and most of the people were still alive.  We moved on quickly, not wanting to risk that the Romans wouldn't come back to finish what they had started.  It was several weeks later that Buffy found me.  Shortly after she did, she killed the Roman General that was in charge of things that she had been "owned" by and somehow it was blamed on an internal assassination.  The Romans left, leaderless, to regroup.  Giving us time to recover and properly prepare for their next arrival."

"Buffy, which was the name that she introduced herself by and that I have always known her as, told me all of the things that she has told you here, now.  About Immortals, demons, the Game and the fallacy involved with it, and how I had to learn how to survive.  I already knew about demons and such, it was the Immortality that it took her a while to convince me of.  That it existed, all my darling little girl had to do was kill herself right in front of me.  That I was Immortal was what gave her the headaches."

"Hey, you finally figured it out after I pushed you off the cliff," Buffy pointed out like a good kid.

Joy ignored her for the most part, recalling the events of Buffy trying to convince her that she was Immortal and was destined to save the world from the demons and the "Old Ones".

TBC…


	5. Chapter 5

North Shores of Loch Shoal, Ireland:  792 A.D.

"I-I-I…I can't believe you Buffy!" Joy Thatcher apologized to the youthful blond standing crossly before her.  "I-I I'm sorry, but-but I just can't."

"What's so hard to believe Joy?" the blonde Immortal asked innocently enough.

Joy, dressed in the normal rags-sewn-together-dress and heavy cloak, looked mournfully at the young-looking girl.  But she had already proven her age and strange powers, to Joy at the least, and with the proper proof presented, it was easy to believe.  At least the part where Buffy, this strange foreign warrior that just a week ago was little more than a Roman slave and concubine, was an Immortal Demon Slayer and was destined to save all of humanity by gathering all of humanity's heroes into one impossible to defeat Army of Light.  But…but the part that she was also an Immortal warrior, and would one day be one of the generals that actually _lead_ this Army…that, that was what she had a lot of trouble believing.

Buffy was still waiting for an answer, so Joy gave the only one that she could.  "I-I'm not a leader!  I-I can't be your general in an Immortal army!  Buffy, I want to believe you.  I _do_ believe you about who and what you are, but…but I _can't_ believe you about, that I'm…I mean, I _can't_ be…you understand?"

Buffy just started chuckling and ruefully shook her head in amusement over some private thing that completely eluded Joy at the time.  "You don't believe you're Immortal, is that it?" Buffy asked her gently.  Frowning, Joy turned out towards the sea, where the vile Romans had come from.  The two women were standing on the edge of a cliff, just over the vast expanse of water, with nary a strip of beach directly beneath, hidden slightly by the overhang of the rocky outcropping.

Again, Joy hesitated before answering.  "I…I-I'm not really…sure.  I…I remember the Roman's blade, and then pain, pain like I have never known.  And the next thing I knew…I woke up amide the ashes of our village.  Did I really die?"  She asked, turning back to the shorter blonde warrior.

Buffy was dressed more typical of her chosen profession, Demon Slayer, rather than her falsified part as a slave, or even as her gender would've decreed she dress.  Rather than a dress or modest skirt, she wore tight-fitting warm leather pants, heavy weighted and protected boots that were actually sewn to her feet, and a borrowed plate of leather armor she asked for from the village over the brightest, most white shirt that anybody on the isle had ever seen.  Because of the dropping temperature, she too wore a heavy cloak, but while Joy's was a dark forest green, Buffy's was an incredibly bright golden yellow, a color few had ever seen before Spring among the flowers of the valleys, Joy had thought the first time she saw the cloak around the Golden Slayer.

Buffy could only nod in answer, avoiding Joy's eyes for the moment.

"Why me?" Joy finally asked.

Buffy looked up and really, _really_ looked at the middle-aged woman.  "Fate," was the short reply, followed by another, "Destiny.  All of that."  Then she stood up from the large boulder she had been leaning against, and took several steps closer to the Druid apprentice.  "Joy, it's a choice.  Destiny is always that, I've found anyway.  Unfortunately, it's not much of a choice.  Joy.  You _are_ Immortal.  And you can choose one of three things.  Come with me, let me teach you, and then follow a destiny that ancient and long forgotten gods chose and made for you.  Or, stay here and try your damnedest to ignore and forget about everything that has happened for the past month, and watch everybody around you grow old, die, and have children while you can't, no matter what.  Or the last choice.  Throw it all away.  Say no to me, say no to seeing all your loved ones dying in front of you, and say no to the Fates, and just end it all."

Joy blinked in surprise.  "End-end it…all?" she stuttered.

Buffy then smiled, a sharp contrast and a sudden change to the angry warrior she had been but a moment ago.  "You know…" her grin grew further, "…kill yourself."  With no more warning than that, Buffy shoved with a belying strength, given her small stature, Joy over the cliff.  And far enough out that she _would_ hit water, and not the soft wet sand beneath the edge of the cliff.

Time seemed to slow suddenly for Joy.  Her life, her time on Earth, was supposed to appear before her, so she could see any regrets she might have.  At least that was how the superstition went.  Not that Joy had any regrets.  None at all.  Instead, she just saw Buffy and the old tree and large boulder that had always rested atop the cliff for longer than she could remember, moving farther and farther away.  Buffy no longer bore the insane grin that she'd had when she had shoved the witch, but rather it held an apologetic, yet not one holding the necessary strength of heart considering the act committed, gaze.  After the moment or two, which felt like hours of the night to the falling blonde, that she was still held parallel to the cliff, things started to speed up to a completely unnatural and unbelievable pace.  Buffy, the tree, the boulder, they disappeared faster than a bird over the horizon, only to be replaced with the racing wall of rock the held and made up the cliff.  And then a sharp and sudden shock that was so _hard_ in its force that there was no other sensation other than pain.  Then…blackness.

After a heartbeat of the blackness, Joy opened her eyes, only to see the blue green murkiness that she sometimes saw when she went swimming in the sea, but she did not see the normal sparkle of light that revealed the barrier of sea and air.  Where was the surface?  Joy began to panic, and in her sudden struggles, she forgot for the moment…that it's impossible to breath underwater.  The blackness, while ever familiar, came much slower this time, making it just that much more painful.

The next thing that the blond Druid was aware of…she was gasping in the life giver, the air!  Sweet merciful air!  After breathing her fill and coughing up several buckets of seawater, Joy looked around where she was.  The beach.

She blinked several times, just to make sure she was not seeing things.  Then she looked down at her appearance.  She looked like a drowned rat.  No, actually drowned rats looked dryer than she did right now.  Coughing once more from trying to speak, Joy was finally able to get out, "What…'koff, koff, koff,' what happened?"

"You drowned."  Came the unexpected reply.

Turning with a surge of adrenaline that surprised her at how she could ever move so fast, Joy saw that it was Buffy.  She was sitting on a rock just past the sand line, among the weeds and grass that grew along the beaches.  But she was dressed differently.  She was wearing the same cloak, but she was wearing a skirt, plaid with the tribe's colors, and a red shirt that Joy recognized as her own.

"Buf-buffy?" Joy stuttered out, getting shakily to her feet.

"The one and only," the blonde warrior replied.

"What happened?" Joy repeated, stepping closer to the seated form, until she could sit down on the rock next to her.

Buffy just shrugged and continued to look out at the sea.  "I pushed you off the cliff, you drowned, and you washed up on shore.  I've been waiting since morning for you to wake up."

Gulping at the implications of what she had just been told, Joy considered all the facts.  Which led her to her next question.  "How long?"

Buffy didn't answer at first, just continuing to look out at the sea.  Joy thought that she hadn't heard, but the smaller blond finally answered, albeit quietly.  "Five days."

Joy sighed and closed her eyes in contemplation.

"Did you know?" she finally asked, also looking out at sea.

"Know what?" Buffy responded.  "That you were Immortal?  That you would wash ashore rather than swim ashore?  That it would take the tide five days to decide to send you back here?  Know what?"

Joy just closed her eyes and bent her head in prayer.  Behind her tightly shuteyes, a tear leaked through.  "What do I do?" she asked softly, sounding so much more younger and innocent than anybody could be.

Buffy sighed and continued to watch the water.  "I take you back to the village, and we tell them everything.  Everything.  Then I teach you how to fight and survive in the world as it is.  Then I teach you how to adapt.  Unfortunately, that lesson will come sooner than either of us want it to be."

"Why's that?" Joy asked, her eyes still closed and crying.

"Because the Romans will be back in force, either by Spring, Mid-Summer, or at the very latest, the next Spring.  Nothing either of us can do, or could do, can stop that.  After I have taught you how to survive, you make your choice.  To either stay…or to come with me.  Either way, it's a risk.  I'll only leave when your sister's grandchildren have married and expect children of their own.  Or if the Romans come and destroy everything.  I will not fight your people's war, not even for you, and certainly not for them.  As much as I hate the Romans, as much as anybody does…they still have their purpose in life, and I won't become the ghost that haunts children's stories, just because one group of nomadic people, that will be dead in fifty to eighty years anyway, wanted me to keep them on their land for just _one_ more year."

Buffy then stood up, from her posture and everything else, Joy knew she was angry.  She looked right at the soaked rag that was her new student.  "Joy, I won't lie to you.  This life is a hard one.  But it's made easier with company.  You don't have much more of a choice than what I told you on that cliff.  Now come on, you're family is worried about you."

Joy silently stood up, and was encompassed by the arms of her Teacher.  The small warrior held her, comforting her, and gave Joy the clue to the revelation she had in the next instant.  _'I'm a Mom…'_

Sunnydale, CA Summers house, 1999:

"_'I'm a Mom'_?" Buffy blurted out as Joyce Summers finished her recount.

Joyce just shrugged and pointed at the small blond, "Like your ending was any better?  _'Nobody's ever heard of the name _Buffy_?'_  Well, just as it was true for you, my dear, it was the same for me."

A second later, Joyce stuck her tongue out at her "daughter" and taunted, "So there!"

After the confusing looks that shot back and forth around the room after that statement was heard, it was unanimously, while silently, agreed that Xander would be the one to speak on it.  "Uh, Mrs. Summers?  Or Joy, or Joyce, or whoever you are…you do realize that you _are_ an adult here, right?"

At both blond's sudden giggling fit, everybody felt like they'd been left out of something.  Though, considering what they'd already been left out of…whatever the joke was, it was as easy as pie in comparison.  "Uhhhh, care to let us in on the joke Buffy?" Xander proffered.

When no immediate response came, Willow put on the dreaded "Resolve face" and in a sharp tone that Joyce could only ever hope to mimic, she snapped out, "Buffy Anne Summers!  Stop acting like a child and explain why you _mother_ is!"

The room was immediately wrapped in a blanket of silence so thick that they stopped breathing for an instant.  Until Joyce started giggling again.

Buffy just sighed and nodded her head, admitting the point.  She just shrugged and said the first thing that came to her mind.  "We're just letting our hair down Wills.  Ever since Joy and I first came to the Hellmouth…we've been tense.  Joy had to be careful to be just blind enough to make her seem one of the "normal" people still out there.  _I_ had to be careful in my slaying so I didn't die too soon or anything like that, and make sure that I never let out this big secret to you guys or anybody else.  I mean, you've all been carrying around the secret of my being the Slayer, and vampires and demons and all of it for three years now.  How hard has it been not to just shout it to the high heavens, or your parents, or your more normal friends that everything that there's a myth or legend for is real and is responsible for more than half of the deaths in this town?"

At no answer, Buffy continued.  "Now imagine how hard it was on all of us, hiding this secret, not only from all of you, but from all of the people we've known.  Living through high school is hard enough, right?  Well try living through three wars, and you're the only person that walks out of it.  Personally, I have lived through about nine major world power wars, Romans included.  Altogether wars between everybody that had a beef with somebody else and the muscle to back them up?  Then I have lived through more than a thousand wars.  I lost friends, close friends in every one of them.  Friends as close as we are, some even closer.  And yes Xander, Xena would be considered to be one of those."

After several minutes silence, Xander finally gained the courage to ask a question that had been bugging him for some time, plus he hoped it would let go of the nasty tension hanging in the air at the moment.  "So uh, on the show, they've started to…uh, well suggest certain things between Xena and Gabrielle…and I was, uh, wondering…uh, did…" he stuttered.

Buffy's expression said that she knew what he was talking about, but she was waiting for him to out and out say it.  Finally he just blurted it out.  "Were you and Xena gay together?"

Joy suddenly burst out laughing, Cordelia slapped Xander on the back of the head, while Willow froze and Oz just quirked an eyebrow.  Buffy just waited for Joyce to stop laughing enough for her to answer.  Except Faith came back before she did.

"Lucy, I'm home," Faith crowed out in a bad Ricky Ricardo accent. As she stepped into the living room with two bags of clothes over her shoulder.  "We to my part yet?" she asked jovially.

Buffy smiled and decided to answer Xander's question as vaguely as possible.  "Not yet Faith.  And yes Xander, Xena and I _"experimented"_ together."  Faith's response was to drop her bags and start cackling with laughter identical to Joy's.  "Oh man," she said after her breath was caught, "I had been hoping that question would come up.  Hey B, ya wanna tell'em how many chicks you have "experimented" with?"

Buffy blushed slightly crimson, while Willow was already way ahead of her.  Faith, seeing this, "What are you laughing at Red?" she asked lewdly.

Willow, if possible, actually blushed a little redder when she answered the Dark Slayer.  "Uh…well Faith, in case you kinda forgot, Buffy magically transcribed all of her life memories into…uh, my mind.  So I, uh, kinda…remember who exactly she . . . experimented with."

When Xander heard this, he had a double reaction.  First, the instinctive reaction of all males on Earth, he wanted the details.  Then he remembered that this was his friend, his best friend since they were both in Kindergarten.  He knew her, and she knew him.  He also knew that anything of the personal nature she tended to avoid and was often deeply embarrassed by, so the fact that she suddenly knew everything about Buffy, and that meant _everything_, when he made such innuendos about the . . . Immortal, then he might as well be making fun of Willow at the same time.

He was about to fully apologize to his friend, quite publicly, but she must have seen it on his face because she interrupted him before he could say a word.  "Don't worry about it Xander.  It's just that…uh that kind of reminded me of," Willow paused and closed her eyes, organizing her words, "I mean, it brought forth some memories of Buffy's that," she turned to look at the blonde across from her, "that I know she finds kinda painful.  Because of the loss.  I'm sorry Buffy."

The Immortal just waved off the apology saying, "Don't worry about it Will.  You get used to it.  Live long enough, go through it often enough…you get used to it."  At this, all three Immortals were deathly silent.  Remembering.

Cordelia, tactless enough to ask, not to mention able to see when a moment needed to be passed, asked, "So what happened after you drowned your mom?"

Faith's eyes widened and she shared a glance with Buffy, who started to laugh at the attempt of Queen C to change the topic.  "Uh, B?" Faith asked, looking from one member of the group to another.  "You wanna fill me in on what yer talkin' about?"

Buffy decided to take the floor and stood up, Joyce having sat back down on the couch as she told her story.  "We've been catching them up on our personal histories Faith.  I told them about the prophecy and how I helped in making the Slayers, and everything about Xena."  At Faith's insinuating smirk, she amended, "Well, not _everything_."

Frowning, Faith turned and thought briefly of just moving her stuff into the extra bedroom rather than stay down here and get stared at.  After all, she was the one that had died.  However all thoughts of action were taken out of her head when Buffy suddenly grabbed her shoulder and spun her around.  Faith barely had time to get out, "B…?" before Buffy's lips were pressed onto hers.  After several moments, Faith stopped trying to think of what her teacher was doing and just went with it and enjoyed it.  When Buffy finally let up from the semi-passionate kiss (no tongue), Faith had a smile almost as wide as her face on, and Buffy was still blushing pink.

"Faith," Buffy got the Slayer's attention.  Faith looked up, the goofy grin plastered to her head.  "Sit down." Buffy ordered.  Faith nodded, giggled a little, and then sat down on the love seat next to Cordelia, the stupid grin still present.  Xander was in shock.

"So, what happened after I convinced Joy?" Buffy continued the conversation as though nothing had happened.  "Well, we started training.  Immortal training.  She learned the sword, all the fighting techniques I knew at the time, and half the languages I knew.  Only half because half the languages I knew were the only ones being used at that time.  Understand that by that time I was already over a thousand, nearly over two thousand years old.  I knew Sumerian, Latin, Chinese, Ancient Chinese, several dialects of all, Japanese, German, Mongolian, Indian languages, and dozens of others.  Then."

"So, uh, so how many languages do you truly know?" Giles interrupted suddenly.

Buffy got a thoughtful look on her face as she contemplated the question.  After a minute or so, she answered, "Oh, I don't know.  Maybe about oh say, two hundred and twelve-no thirteen.  Two hundred and thirteen languages."

Giles slipped back into shock.


	6. Chapter 6

_Continued from Previous…_

"So, what happened after I convinced Joy?" Buffy continued the conversation as though nothing had happened.  "Well, we started training.  Immortal training.  She learned the sword, all the fighting techniques I knew at the time, and half the languages I knew.  Only half because half the languages I knew were the only ones being used at that time.  Understand that by that time I was already well over a thousand, nearly over two thousand years old.  I knew Sumerian, Latin, Chinese, Ancient Chinese, several dialects of all, Japanese, German, Mongolian, Indian languages, and dozens of others.  Then."

"So, uh, so how many languages do you truly know?" Giles interrupted suddenly.

Buffy got a thoughtful look on her face as she contemplated the question.  After a minute or so, she answered, "Oh, I don't know.  Maybe about oh say, two hundred and twelve-no thirteen.  Two hundred and thirteen languages."

Giles slipped back into shock.

Faith, having witnessed the display "earlier" when she was terra-forming the entity called "Ripper", felt it pertinent to ask.  "Hey, G-man, y'kay?"

Giles meekly nodded.

Buffy shook her head ruefully as she considered the educated Watcher.  While she had, now admittedly, lived longer, had more experience, could speak more languages, and had killed more demons and people than the man had ever seen, he still was a great asset to her.  When she didn't have time, these days anyway, to research catalogue or write about the demons she fought and killed, Giles did and he did it well.  The truly sad part of it though was that the Watcher was truly mortal, otherwise Faith would have encouraged Ripper to join her on the bus when she had decided to leave England that year.  Buffy was caught for a moment in the memory of that fateful day.

London, England:  1975 A.D.

Sara Fletcher and Rupert Giles were walking down Main Street, dressed in their school uniforms, on their way to the pub straight out of class.  The couple that was known as the wildest pair ever to go on the town was enjoying the last few weeks they would have together as students. Come three weeks time, the second of which were the exams, they were free to do whatever they chose with the diplomas that the Stanford board of Directors would so foolishly give to such a dangerous pair.

Unbeknownst to anyone but herself and one other, Sara, formerly Faith the Immortal Slayer, had managed to pass all of her exams early and had more than enough credit hours to pass with full honors.  She already had her diploma.  She had gotten it from the board just that week, planning on having to leave the country sooner than graduation would arrive.  They fully understood her reasons.  At least the ones that she gave them.

_'Damn B and her Immortal honor and crap!'_ Sara was thinking to herself as she contemplated her predicament, while keeping a pleasant enough smile on her face as she and Ripper walked along watching the people pass.

_'Hey, I heard that,'_ came a random thought through Sara's mind.  It sounded strangely like her Immortal Teacher's voice.

_'B?'_ she asked, her thought-voice inflicting her natural Bostonian accent.

_'Who else has a telepathic link to you?'_ came the mental response.

_'Ya know, I still don't get how it is that you have that cool power from the Olympians when they gave you Slayer powers, and all I get stuck with is the normal Slayer mode.'_ Faith complained the ever-lasting argument between the Immortal Slayers.

'Faith, if I've told you once, then I've told you a million times now, all Slayers have the potential of being telepathic.  To be able to read people's true thoughts and feelings.  It also helps to weed out the vampires and demons, since vampires can't be read telepathically, and demons are like listening to the sounds of hell inside of a person.'

_'B, I _really_ don't need a lecture right now.  I'm walking with my boyfriend, I don't need to fall asleep on him.'_ Faith smart-mouthed back.

_'So I see.  Is this guy really the infamous "Ripper" I've heard so much about?'_ came Buffy's glib reply.

_'What?  Where the hell are you B?'_ Faith thought back with a flash of anger.

'Careful Faith, Rupert just asked you a question.'

Shaking her head from the lost mental connection/conversation, Sara turned her attention fully to the man standing beside her.  The look on his face told her that B was right, and she had totally just missed the question.

"Sorry Rip," Sara apologized, making sure that her accent was the southern British, not the southern Boston one.  "My head's all in the clouds since we passed those fumes back there."

Smirking, Rupert Giles, tall, dark brown hair perfectly combed and straight (for the moment), and devilishly handsome looks, glared down at his girlfriend, the way that she had told him she liked to be looked at by the man that wanted to own her.  "And, pray tell, _what_ fumes might those have been?"

"What?" she asked, feigning outrageous shock, "You mean to tell me you didn't get a whiff of that bloke on the corner?  The one in white, that was bending so far over that I could see all the way down to the other side of the English Channel if I wanted to?"

Rupert, looking back, saw only one man in white on the corner they had just passed when Sara had gone total space cadet on him.  The Butcher.  "You mean the Butcher?" he asked.  Just as indicated man bent over and provided same view that Sara had just commented on.

"Oh…" Rupert muttered, and then he heard the sound.  As it all clicked, he broke out in a lecherous grin and started to darkly chuckle.  "I see what you mean.  But what I asked is, what is it that you want to do after Graduation?"

Sara's left eyebrow shot up a half-inch.  "Oh, I'll tell you what we're going to do after graduation Ripper…" Sara hissed as she grabbed Ripper's collar and pulled him down for a passionate kiss.  Sara, never the one to back down for anything, forced her tongue immediately into Rupert's mouth, and was pleased when he reciprocated.  Opening her mouth a little more, and using the tip of her tongue to tickle the bottom of his, Sara tried her damnedest to reach the taller man's tonsils, or at the very least, play with that little ball at the back of his throat like a game of cattails.  Finally, for Rupert anyway, the need for air and continued life outbid the desire to remain lip-locked together, barely.

Gasping for the substance of the space around them that was called air; the two giddy "teenagers" just kept staring into one another's eyes for quite some time after they had separated.

After several minutes, Rupert gained enough breath to speak again.  "That's…that's not…not exactly what I meant, but-but that _is_ a good plan that I happen to agree with."

"Rupert, we're not in school.  Let Ripper out to play," Sara singsonged.

A dark look crossed Rupert's face.  "So, bitch, you want to know what I think of your idea?"

An apathetic look crossed Sara's face as she replied, "Who asked you?"

Ripper answered by forcefully grabbing the girl's arms and then smashed his mouth on top of hers, for a kiss that was just as violent as the previous was passionate.  Sara gave as good as she got in the kiss that was more a fight in itself than a kiss.  Finally, Sara got bored and let Ripper win, tricking him as always into thinking that he had naturally won.  _'B's right.  This telepathy power rocks.'_

Suddenly, Sara was filled with an impending sense of danger and approaching doom.  She only ever felt like that when two things happen.  Someone was about to ruin her _really_ good time, or something really, really, _really_ bad was about to happen.  Faith/Sara had dubbed it her "Slayer sense".

Before the kiss was even through, a screeching sound, familiar to tires and cars, broke it apart as Ripper and Sara looked down the street, just in time to see a double-decker bus run screeching into the side of a building.

_'B!  You still there?'_ Faith mentally shouted to her teacher.

_'Yeah!  I saw it.  But I'm too far away to do anything about it!  Faith, there's something on that bus.  I can't see exactly what it is…but all of the kids on there look really scared.  And they can't get out.  I think something's blocking the doors and staircase, so they can't get out.  Wait a sec…'_ B answered.

Thirty seconds later, _'FAITH!  There's a bomb on that bus!  The police scanner just picked it up!  The IRA sent a terrorist out to bomb some Catholic school that's funded by some guy they're after.  Apparently the driver or one of the kids found it and drove the bus there!  Faith, you have to take care of that bomb.  And get the kids out of there!'_

Before Buffy had even finished the first sentence, Faith was running towards the bus.  When she heard that there were kids on there, she tripled her pace.  She saw that it was all true the moment she got to it.  Scared ten and eleven year old kids in Catholic school uniforms were all in the seats, crying and screaming their heads off.  Faith also saw what the door was blocked with.  The bomb.

Making a _very_ hasty decision, Faith jumped up on the engine, and using the enhanced strength that she had had for most of her life, kicked the driver's window in.  Only after she crawled in did she see the driver dead on the floor, blood flowing out of his chest.  Glancing up at the bomb, she saw the countdown in bright red digital numbers.  12:30.  Twelve minutes and thirty seconds.  Definitely not enough time to drive out of the city _and_ evacuate all the kids.

Making another hasty decision, Sara turned the keys and started the bus.  Just as Rupert was running up to the bus even.  He jumped up into the cab just as she figured out how the bloody thing worked.  Slapping his butt in a none too teasing way, Sara ordered him, "Out of the bloody way Ripper.  Try and keep the kiddies calm.  We've got to get this thing out and away from the city so it won't do too much damage."

Sara finally got the damn bus to get into reverse, and then she keyed it into Drive and struggled to maintain her connection with Buffy as she fought down her panic.  _'B, I hope ya got someplace I can dump this thing and still have time to get the kids outta here!'_

_'Don't worry Faith.  All right, take a right!  THERE!'_ Buffy instructed from wherever she was.  Sara could feel the ancient in her mind, seeing through her eyes, but considering the situation and the moment, she really didn't care.  In fact she was kinda glad that she had even this much help.

_'All right Faith, I'm directing you to a small bridge that runs over the channel.  I want you to stop less than ten feet in front of it and get the kids out of the back window.  Safer that way.  LEFT!'_ Buffy continued to guide her by giving her directions.

_'That's all well and good B, but what are we gonna do about the bus when the bomb blows?'_ Faith asked.

_'Drive it off the bridge.'_ Before Sara could interrupt though, _'Don't worry.  The bridge is small enough that driving the bus over the edge won't crack the tank or set off the bomb early.  Judging by appearance, from when you looked at it, it's not a nitro cap.'_

_'B?  Do you know how to disarm this bomb?'_ Sara asked, suspicious.

_'Look at it again.'_ Buffy ordered.  Sara did so.  And got an immediate, _'Shit!  No way.  Maybe if I had time to personally study the wiring, but not in the next seven minutes.  Faith, you've got to hurry.  If you get the kids out fast enough, you should have more than enough time to drive the bus off the bridge and still climb up out of the channel, but only if you HURRY!'_

And it would be at that very minute that a slow moving, but fast enough it would seem, taxi pulled straight in front of Sara and the bus.  "Oh bugger!" Sara cursed.  "MOVE!!" she shouted.  No response except maybe to drive slower.  Her face growing dark, Rupert recognized the signs of Sara's own "Ripper".

"**OY**!  Hey you------!" Rupert found it ironic that the buses horn would blow at the very moment that Sara was letting loose the most foulest language he had ever heard from her when she was sober, for the exact duration as well.  Then Rupert looked behind him and saw all the scared faces of all the little children behind him.  And suddenly Ripper had a new purpose in life.  Protect these innocents.  No matter the cost.  If Sara would do it even now, then he certainly could do it for himself.

"Bloody Hell!" Sara cursed once again and let loose another horn blast.  Finally, her face carrying a dark look that he had never, ever seen before, her patience broke and she floored the bus, ramming the tail end of the cab in front of them.  But rather than back off and allow the taxi to get out of the way, Sara just kept on the gas until she was literally driving for the taxi.

After a minute, the terrified driver was able to maneuver his car out of the way of the insane woman and the way was clear all the way to the bridge.  Putting the bus in idle park, Sara leaped up and ran to the back of the double decker and didn't even pause in kicking out the back window.

"Out the window Rip!" she yelled.

"What!  I am not…!" Rupert yelled back.  Sara rounded on him, silencing his protest before he could even get it out.  "Out.  The.  Window." She hissed.  He glared for a moment longer and then bent down and jumped out the window.

"Catch'em as they come boyo!" she shouted to him on the ground.  Turning to the kids she told them as briefly as she could, that the ride was over.  "Out the window.  NOW!!"

Obediently, they all lined up in front of her, and every one waited patiently as she picked them up and handed them out the window, to Rupert who waited anxiously for them as they came to him.  As he sat them down, he directed them as far down the street as possible, and even ordered one girl, who looked older than the rest, to call the constables and Scotland Yard.

Finally all the children were out.  When seeing that no more children would be coming, Rupert launched himself back into the bus through the window, to see Sara running back up the aisle to the drivers seat.

"SARA!" he shouted.  "Now is not the time to remember your purse!  This bloody bus is about to blow!"  Sara for the most part ignored him until she was sitting in the driver's seat.

"Not the point Rip!" she shouted back at him as she keyed the double decker into reverse.  "Have to get this thing out of the way of collateral damage.  Out of the streets.  Don't worry, I plan on collecting my five dollars.  Now bloody get off the bloody bus!  I'm going to drive it off the bridge, then climb out and up the side of the channel!  Don't worry about me Ripper!  You've got your own life to live.  I'll let you live yours, and I'll always live mine.  Thanks for the ride mate!"

That was the last thing Rupert Giles ever saw or heard of Sara Fletcher, as she finished backing up and started it forward, aiming for the bridge.  He couldn't hang on, so he let himself go, hoping against hope that his lover was right, and he would be seeing her again.  He watched in silence as the large red bus picked up enough speed to ram through the guardrails of the bridge and get enough momentum to remain upright as it landed in the channel below.

Thank god B was right about the gas tank, Faith mused as she landed the bus safely in the channel.  Then she turned to look at the clock of the bomb, and her face fell.  Too damn bad she was wrong about the timing of…  And the bomb went off.

TBC


	7. Chapter 7

Continued from Previous… 

Sunnydale, CA Summers house, 1999:

Shaking her head, Buffy tried to let go of the memory fragment and rejoined reality as it were.  Willow was just explaining how Immortals worked to Cordelia and Oz, apparently telling them why it was so important that if there ever were Immortals to come to Sunnydale, why they were not to indicate that they knew of Immortals, or that they specifically knew Buffy, Faith, and Joy.

"Because Cordelia," Willow stressed, "this Game that all of the other Immortals out there are playing would try and kill them.  And if they knew that we knew them, they would have absolutely no qualm about killing us to get to them.  You remember Larva man?"

Cordelia was confused for several seconds, as evident on her face, before responding, "What does that have to do with anything?  And by the way, ewwww for the bad visual memory.  I had to shower for two days after that," she whispered to Amy.

"Well, he was an assassin sent by the Order of Teraka to kill Buffy.  And I don't think he had any problems with killing you to get to her, am I right Xander?" Willow proved her point.

His face blank for a moment, Xander then turned to his girlfriend and translated, "OK Cordy, if you want to live and keep your head intact, Buffy, Faith, and Mrs. Summers are who they've always been, otherwise you'll be thought of as insane and if you breath a word of any of this to anybody else, chances are good that you'll lose your head.  As in Decapitation."

Cordelia mulled over that for all of two seconds before sarcastically responding, "Well duh!  I do know how to keep a secret dork face.  I've managed to keep the whole Slayer one a secret.  Besides, who wants to be hanging out with really old people all the time?  Ewwww much?"

Looking up, she saw Giles and all three Immortals staring at her.  "No offense."

"None taken," Buffy and Faith immediately responded.  Joyce just smiled in that motherly way that said she was trying not to yell, while Giles started clucking his tongue like he did.

Amy suddenly started, causing both Buffy and Faith to start.  "What's wrong Sabrina?" the Dark Slayer asked, tense.

Seeing the reaction she had started, Amy just waved it off and relaxed a little.  "Oh, it's nothing.  It's just that I remembered that my aunts are going to be visiting this weekend.  And aunt Alison is going to be bringing her fiancée.  I just wondered if that might end up being a problem."

Buffy shook her head saying, "Believe me, it's no problem at all.  It's been nearly thirty years since I last saw John.  Don't worry Amy, the most you'll have to worry about is Faith if Alison gets her hands on her.  After finding out about her and John's past…"

"Wait a freakin' minute here!" Faith loudly interrupted.  "_John_, as in _John_ Carter?"

Frowning a bit, Buffy nodded and answered, "Well yeah, back then.  Now he's using the name John Madison.  At least that's what his last letter said.  And Amy, you do know that John knows about vamps, demons and stuff, right?  I mean, he obviously knows about witches…"

"Witches?" Willow chirped.

Smiling, despite herself, Buffy shook her head and looked at Willow saying, "Not now Wills."

Amy nodded to the affirmative, but then asked, "But he doesn't believe you about the whole Game thing not really true, does he?"

Buffy shrugged and muttered something nobody could understand.  "No, no he doesn't.  I will tell you this, not many of the Immortals still alive today like playing the 'Game', but very few of them know of any other way to live.  Most that take up our position on it just remain on Holy Ground for their entire lives, living as little more than hermits.  There are a few who actually take to it with a passion and do little else other than hunt for new or easy heads.  I suppose we could name a few right of the bat, but we don't want to scare anybody."

"Why not?" Oz asked.

Looking surprised, Buffy stared at him for a moment.  "Because it scares us, Oz." Came the quiet reply from Joyce.

Everybody did a double take and blinked off their shock after that single sentence statement.  Xander then felt it prudent to try and lighten the mood once more, "Well, first, I'd hate to ever actually see what could _ever_ scare you and Faith, and second, if that's scary, what's terrifyingly cute?"

The three Immortals shared a look with each other before saying in unison, "The Teletubbies singing the Barney song, with Muppets as back up."

The room was briefly filled with laughter once again, but it was far too short lived.

Joyce looked at the clock on the wall and compared it to her watch, surprised at how late it was.  Thankfully it was still…well it had all started anyway, on Friday night, and it was now nearing 6 AM on Saturday morning.  And being the unofficial, while still prophetic, mother of the group, Joyce thought it time to get everybody home.  They could finish any other conversations and explanations later this afternoon, but for now, they had to get mortal kids back home.

"All right Buffy, it's getting late, and I'm sure that we're all more than just a little tired." Joyce pointed out as she stood, "Amy, Willow, if you wouldn't mind, I'll drive you home.  Buffy, I want you to go with Cordelia in her car, just to make sure that she makes it home all right.  Rupert, I'm sure that you are more than capable to safely drive home, and Faith…"

"With the Oz-man!" the dark slayer crowed.  Joyce, hiding her smile, nodded silently.

"Good idea, Mom.  Come on Cordy," Buffy fit back into her role as a teenager so fast that some were left with their heads spinning.

"Uh, yeah…" Cordelia trailed off as she grabbed her keys and purse, following the blond Immortal Slayer out the door.

Outside, Cordelia and Buffy quietly walked to the former's cherry red convertible.  Cordelia quickly got in on the driver's side, while Buffy jumped over the door and easily slide into the passenger's seat.

Once they were more or less on their way, Cordelia finally asked the question that Buffy knew had been bugging her for some time.  "All right _Buffy_," Cordelia's use of the blonde's name told her how truly pissed the cheerleader/prom queen/Ms. Popularity was.  "What is the deal?  I know how you think, and this is _so_ not the way that you usually work!  My father has been begging and pleading and all around bribing me to hang with you bunch of losers since you first show up.  When I actually start doing it, he starts pestering me about everything, and I mean _everything_, that you and your mom do.  You know something about that, and you are going to tell me now, or I am going to throw you out of my car, right now!"

Buffy was quiet for several seconds, just staring out the windshield, the wind blowing her golden locks behind her.  "Your father is my Watcher."

Cordelia was confused by the answer, enough that she actually started going the speed limit again.  "What do you mean?  I thought Giles was your Watcher?  And like I said, I know how you think.  If you've got something to hide about this, I'll know it, and you…"

"Cordelia, there are things in this world that you may never know about or understand, but please, try to understand.  Giles belongs to the Council of Watchers.  They belong to a very large and dangerous worldwide organization.  This conglomerate corporation stems from a place in Africa that while today might be very known, a long time ago it was as hidden as anything can ever get in the world.  The force that controls all of this calls itself the "Triumvirate".  They own or control, or at the very least influence most of the "secret" organizations that exist today.  The Council of Watcher's being one of them." Buffy outlined for the dark haired driver.

"What does that have to do with my dad?" Cordelia asked.

"There is another set of Watchers out there.  Because of the Council, they chose to dub themselves the 'Society of Watchers'.  They watch and record the activities of Immortals.  Unlike the Council, the Society never interferes in the least.  They just watch us and record our activities.  No Cordy, your dad is not a voyeur.  Think about it, you just found out tonight that the Greek gods, and Xena are all real.  I have lived through more history than you'll ever read about in school, and I've also influenced some of it.  The Watchers make sure that we aren't forgotten when, or if, the Game actually kills all of us.  But that's not all."

"I figured that," muttered the cheerleader.

"The Society of Watchers is also controlled by another force element.  This other organization stems from several places, not really one in particular.  It is called the _Illuminati_.  They have more or less placed themselves in the preservation of mankind and place themselves under the side of light in the war of good and evil."

"Soooo, my dad's a good guy?" Cordy asked.

Buffy smiled and nodded as they came up to the Chase mansion gate.  "Ofcourse he's a good guy.  So is Giles.  But the Triumvirate _is_ as close as they can get, while still being human, to evil.  The Illuminati, while with its faults, really is on the side of light, or they are the good guys.  Any more questions Cordy?" Buffy asked as they stepped out of the car.

"Um, yeah," Cordelia answered, looking nervous as Buffy patiently waited for the query.  "Is my dad gonna go ga-ga or something when he sees you?"

Buffy smiled and mused, _'Probably,'_ while out loud saying, "Hopefully not."

Five minutes earlier 

"Mrs. Summers…" Amy began.

"Joyce, dear," Joyce corrected.

Smiling sheepishly and blushing slightly, Amy amended, "Joyce."  The elder driving the jeep nodded approvingly.  "Do you know John?  And how did Buffy and Faith meet him?"

Joyce smiled openly as she tried to explain a situation that her "daughters" had gotten themselves into, a long time ago, and how complicated it became when John Carter tried to step in and be the boy-scout hero.

"No, I've never met John before," Joyce answered.  "But I do know the story.  It was back in the 1930's, roughly about 1934 I think.  Buffy and Faith were still living in the North East, but had moved out of Boston because of Faith.  They were actually staying in New York, trying to lay low and keep out of the Watcher's eyes.  Everybody was still on the upswing from the depression, so life in New York City was pretty glum, therefore making it a virtual paradise for the vampires."

"Buffy was running a club that I had set up there a while back, and Faith had taken to the Newsie route.  Meaning she sold newspapers on the streets.  We had enough money saved up in bank accounts to live decently enough through the Depression, but for that time, I had gone out of the country to make some foreign investments.  Covering all our bases.  So while I was in Africa…"

"You've been to Africa?" Willow interrupted.

Joyce nodded, holding back some giggles.  "Yes Willow.  I've been just about everywhere on the face of the world.  Antarctica and the North Pole included.  I haven't climbed Mt. Everest yet, but Buffy has.  Faith was hoping to do it before the turn of the Millennium."

The two teenagers stared at each other, then turned as one to stare back at the Immortal.

"I know I'm gonna regret asking this," Amy started, "but where in the world _haven't_ you been yet?"

Joyce slowed down the car some as she thought of her answer.  "On the world, or in the world?" she asked surprising the two.  "On it," they said together.

"Well, aside from Mt. Everest, the Congo, and Cuba…" Joyce paused as she thought.  "I'd have to say Disney Land and Euro-Disney land."

The two teenagers gaped at the Immortal mother.  "You've never been to Disney land?" Willow asked, shocked, from the back seat.  Joyce nodded confirming her answer.

Slowly, Joyce pulled into a driveway on a lonely street.  It was still mostly night, but the eastern horizon was beginning to brighten, speaking of how early in the morning it was.  "Good night Willow, sleep well.  I guess we'll see you later this afternoon at the house?" Joyce bid farewell.

Getting out of the car, Willow nodded and turned to Joyce.  "Thank you Joy.  And how does three sound?"  Joyce grinned at the name that only Buffy ever called her anymore and nodded saying, "Three's fine dear.  See you then!"  "Bye Amy!" Willow shouted from her door.  Amy just waved.

Joyce waited until Willow was safely inside before putting the Jeep into reverse and driving away down the street.

It wasn't a minute after they had left Willow's house that Amy started asking Joyce for the answer to her question.  "Well?  Come on Joyce!  How did Buffy and Faith meet John?"

Joyce just laughed and shook her head.  "Well, it's a bit complicated Amy, but it all started…"

TBC


	8. Chapter 8

Continued from Previous… 

New York City, June 12, 1934 AD:

"Faith!  I'm going to kill you!" Buffy yelled at the slayer as they ran down the back alley as fast as their legs would carry them.  Behind them was a hoard of vampires.  Buffy had lost count when several more vampires had joined the original mass that they had been hunting.

"What?" Faith asked in genuine curiosity.  "How the hell was _I_ supposed to know that they would have a backup plan like this?"

"It's Giovanni Faith!" Buffy answered shortly, saving most of her breath for running.  "He's the new master vampire and believe it or not, he's actually smart!  I've heard his rep.  He used to be some Italian immigrant that got into the gangster biz!  Now he's a vampire.  Put two and two together why don't you!!"

The two Immortal vampire slayers spent the rest of their run in silence, until that is they came to the end of the alley, which seemed to be placed between three buildings.  One on the right, one on the left, and another smack dab at the end of the road that went up another three stories with no side exits or doors to break open.

"Great!  Just great!" Buffy shouted.  She figured they had another thirty seconds, tops, before the vampires rounded the corner.

"How many stakes you got?" Buffy asked her student, taking out her sword from her overcoat while removing the cumbersome item.  She checked her own stakes and realized that she only had three, one in her belt, and the two in her boots.

Faith grimaced in embarrassment as she answered, "Only two.  My backup and this one."

Buffy nodded and handed the one from her belt.  "Make it count," she ordered, indicating the throw Faith would have to take with the stake.  She nodded then looked further embarrassed as she pointed something else out to her teacher.  "I-uh, I forgot my sword."

Buffy nodded, concentrating on the opening of the alley.  "I know," she said tersely.

Faith looked at her in shock.  "But why did-" Faith was interrupted however by a sudden buzzing sensation coursing through her body and focusing on her head.  She had time enough to curse, "Shit!" before the fifteen or thirty vampires came pouring around the corner.

The ones in the lead, about five of them because that was as many that could fit shoulder to shoulder in the alley, were already in their "game faces" and growling in anticipation of being the firsts at the kills.  If the two Slayers had anything to say about it however, those kills would be played the other way around.  The vampires rushed after a brief pause around the corner of the path, and Buffy and Faith tensed, ready for the fight.

Less than a second after they came into view, Buffy and Faith threw with stunning accuracy and superhuman strength their stakes, dusting three vamps in the first seconds of the fight.  Faith was about to throw her last stake, when Buffy indicated that she should keep it for the up close fight that was still to come.  Faith nodded and fell back a little to give Buffy swinging room and to hopefully draw the vampires into two groups, evening the odds just a little bit.

Buffy had time to throw the stake from her left shoe at the front most vampire and toss Faith the one from her right shoe so the Immortal slayer would have two weapons instead of the one.  Faith nodded once again her thanks and stood ready.  The five seconds it took the remaining vampires to run down the alleyway was more than enough time for the two Slayers prepare a plan to defeat them and wonder what was taking the vampires so long to get to them.

Then the carnage began.  Buffy stepped forward at the last moment and started the fight by impaling one vampire through the throat, keeping it down for the moment.  She followed up by staking the next vampire, and then the next, and then she somehow lost her stake and started swinging with all of her three thousand years of experience.  The vampires soon learned that she was _not_ the one to focus on.

Faith was a different matter.  Whatever vampires got past Buffy, she would take care of.  The first few she just outright staked at the first opening.  After a bit though, and seeing that Buffy was getting a more than decent workout from her slaying, she might as well and try for the same.  Besides, it's not like there were any innocents around to get hurt and Faith trusted Buffy not to let anything truly terrible happen to her if things went sour.  Not that she was planning on them to.

Faith started kicking and knocking whatever vamps made it past Buffy with relative ease, and then occupied herself with seeing how many kicks or hits it would take to keep them on the ground when they got back up.  She managed to keep the record fewer than three kicks to the abdomen for each vampire.  Finally she got bored with that and staked two who were rushing her at the same time and then a third and a fourth, one right after the other.

In the next moment though, Faith saw something that made her blood run as cold as that of her enemies.  A vampire that she had let get past her teacher was slowly stalking up on the blond slayer with the sword.  A rage that Faith hadn't felt in the years since she'd left her former home filled her soul as she ran faster than was humanly possible and staked the treacherous vampire before it even knew that it was dead.

Yet just because the object of rage was gone did not mean that the resulting adrenaline was.  Faith leaped over her teacher in a dazzling display of acrobatics and she nailed three vampires on her landing, which was dust in the next seconds.  After that, it was a massacre in a way that the vampires hadn't planned on it being with the two Immortal slayers in the midst of them all, not a one of them stood a chance.  It was all over less than two minutes after the vampires had come before the two women.  Only one vampire remained, and its purpose was twofold in Buffy's plan.  Information, and to deliver a message.  Unfortunately, the Immortal they had both felt before the fight had started decided in that moment to round the corner and confront the mob chasing two innocent young women in his eyes from afar.

John Carter came running around the corner as he had heard the sounds of a fight taking place.  While most Immortals scoffed at the idea, John _knew_ that vampires were real, because he had been fighting them since he had been killed by one of them years ago.  He recognized that at least two of the mob following the women were vampires, and if they were then chances were good the rest of them were too.  Yet when he felt the presence of another Immortal, he became suddenly rather cautious, drawing his sword and ready for either a fight or witnessing a Quickening.

Instead he found the two young women, one holding a sword, interrogating one of the men that had chased them.  He looked around the alley, expecting to see blood, body parts, _bodies_…but all he saw was dust on the ground.  Looking closer at the withheld man, he realized that it too was a vampire, from its yellow eyes and rigid forehead.  And vampires turned to dust when killed.

Sensing, for the moment that his purpose of being the knight in shining armor for these two was moot at this point, John lowered his sword and patiently waited for the women to make the first move.  He then noticed that they were staring at him, and he realized they were waiting for the same thing from him.  So he decided to make it a neutral one.

"Um, hello," he hesitantly began.  "My name's John Carter.  I, uh, don't really want to fight, I just saw this…uh, these…cretins chasing you two into this alley and I was wondering…if you would need to be…uh, defended," he finished lamely.

The two women just stared at him for several moments more and then turned their attention back to the vampire they had on the ground.  The shorter blond though appeared to be the teacher, as she was the only other one holding a sword, in John's opinion.

Buffy dragged the defeated vampire to his feet and slammed him against the wall with enough force to crack it.  "All right Bob, is it alright if I call you Bob?" Buffy asked in a teasing tone.

The vampire in its Game face just glared back and said proudly, "My name is Phillip, Slayer."

Buffy toothily grinned and handed her sword to Faith, knowing that the hapless Immortal that had come upon them was no threat of a duel.  She then drove her fist with enough force to punch through the wall, possibly even through the vampire, into the vamps gut.  It's eyes bulged, and had it been capable of breathing it would have been wheezing and coughing from the pain.

"No, I'm Ms. Slayer, your Mr. Vampire, understand?" Buffy teased as though she were talking to a retard.  "Now, if I want to call you Bob, Bob, I'll call you Bob, and if I want to call you dick shit, I'll call you dick shit.  Now, do we have an understanding?"

The vampire in too much pain to talk only nodded its head.

"Good," Buffy commented, showing her teeth again.  "Now, here's what I want to know.  Where's Giovanni, where's the nest, and how many families and cadres are in the city?  If you say you don't know, I will call you a liar and turn you over to my pupil for punishment before _I_ really pound into you.  So, first Giovanni, then the nest, then the number of vampires."

Buffy waited patiently as the vampire struggled with its answer.  "Uh-uhm, well…G-gi-Giovanni is-is-is uh, he's at the Plaza Street hotel.  In the sewers beneath them.  Going all the way down to beneath the subway system.  He's uh, he's got guards posted at all outside entrances and like uh, like some kind of patrol that goes everywhere looking for anybody that's not supposed to be there.  Switches'em after every night I think.  I swear that's where all the vampires I know are kept, where they stay and stuff.  I-I don't know how many are in the city…mm-may-mmm-maybe a-uh, a th-thousand or so?"

Buffy rolled her eyes and translated the undead creature's stuttering for the other two Immortals.  "G's under Baldwin Hotel, he has two roving patrols and three guards each at the two entrances, the basement of the hotel and the sewer entrance.  As for _"thousands of vampires"_?  Try like three hundred, tops.  And that's counting the single victims that aren't adopted into a family or cadre.  You're one of Giovanni's?" Buffy asked the vampire.

He hastily nodded his head, his eyes filled with terror at the Slayer that seemed to already know everything she wanted him to tell her.  When she smirked at him, in a way he truly did not like, he felt like dying all over again and staying that way if only he didn't ever have to run into this Slayer again.

"Tell you what I'm gonna do Bob," Buffy said after several minutes of tense silence.  "I'm going to let you go.  Ah, ah, ah.  It comes with a price tag attached.  You go straight, _straight_, to Giovanni, and you tell him the Slayer is in town and is hunting him.  You do not stop for a quick "bite," you do not warn other vampires, you do not make excuses to get out of it.  The moment you leave this alley, you run, no you _fly_ to Giovanni and you tell him what has happened and that I am hunting him.  And Bob, if you do decide to snack on somebody before delivering my message, I will torture you so bad that you will scream for five minutes without pause, before dusting you.  Do you understand me vampire?"

The vampire fearfully nodded its head.  "I can't hear you?" she mocked.  Scowling, but losing it the next second as his terror took hold once more, the vampire responded, "I understand…Slayer."

"Atta boy, go get'em!" Buffy teased as she grabbed the vampire by the scruff of the neck and tossing him over John's head where it landed in a heap at the mouth of the corner alley.  Instantly the vampire was up and running faster than any human could naturally travel.

"Interesting slaying method," John commented, watching the vampire run off.  When he turned back to the two women, the blond was holding her sword at his throat, while he had his still at his side.

"So, John Carter, what's your business here?" the blond asked.  She studied him as he squirmed under her gaze and her sword.  He was a good head taller than her, maybe 5'9", and he looked to her middle-aged, possibly thirty or thirty-five when he died the first time.  He had sharply cut yellow-blond hair, and piercing blue eyes that would make normal women swoon and gasp from the heat in their loins produced by the fine specimen of masculinity.  _'He's cute,'_ she sent to Faith.  She only received agreeing and lusting emotions as response.

Keeping an easy grin, despite feeling to the contrary, John just easily shrugged his shoulders and looked the slayer in the eyes and answered, "Being a good Samaritan.  I saw you two were being chased by a gang of hoodlums.  I didn't know you were Slayers, and I was too far away to sense you being Immortals.  Yet as I said, I have no interest in fighting.  I only wanted to help."

The women, both of them, studied him intently for several minutes before coming to a decision, seeming at the exact same moment.  The blond lowered her sword, and the brunette came closer so he could see her better.

"Beth Slayton.  This is my pupil, Fiona Slayton," the teacher greeted him, holding out her hand.

He smiled as he gently took it and shook it.  The brunette, Fiona, handed Beth her overcoat, which she put on and then placed her sword inside of.  "A pleasure to meet you Ms. Slayton.  It is Ms. is it not?" John put on a handsome smile, wondering.

Beth smiled and shook her head and turned to Fiona, just looking at her for the briefest of seconds, probably giving her some 'Slayer' look knowing women, he mused.  She then turned back to him and smiled gently, but not as sweetly as he might have liked.  "Sorry, I-I just got out of a pretty bad relationship.  But on the plus, my student here is fully available.  She'd even like to see your hotel room this night."

Fiona hit her teacher on the arm at the ending comment, which only caused the blond to start giggling.  John smiled sweetly and turned to the tomboyishly dressed Fiona.  "Why Miss Fiona, I would be honored and privileged to be your escort for the evening, even if it only is to go and slay a cadre of vampires."

The two Immortal Slayers stopped dead and gave him a cold glare that made him wonder if he had said anything wrong.  "What did you just say?" Beth asked him in a distant voice.

Thinking it was because of the escort thing, or maybe even the Miss, John tried to correct his mistake.  "I-uh, I apologize.  I was under the impression that you were "setting me up" so to speak with your student.  I most humbly apologize if I offended either of you in any way."

Beth shook her head.  "No, about the vampires.  You…you believe they exist?  You…how?  Why?"

John, somewhat surprised at their response to his question, answered honestly.  "Well, you were just over there interrogating a vampire, and told him to take a message to his vampire king.  I also assumed that all of the dust on the ground are the remains of the rest of the gang of vampires that I saw chasing you in here.  And having seen you and heard what you found out about the lair of the vampires, I naturally assumed you would want to attack it tonight, so that they would not have much time to move their location or leave the city.  Was I…wrong in assuming this?"

Shocked, Beth shook herself trying to compose her thoughts.  "Uh, no.  I mean, you're right.  I…it's just that all the other Immortals we've…I've ever met in passing never believed in vampires and demons before meeting me.  I mean to say that they didn't believe at all, though some were more easily convinced than others, but most never seemed to…know, before I met them.  How do you know about vampires and…" Beth's gaze became thoughtful and then suddenly accusatory, "…_slayers_."  She had realized that he had called them Slayers already, they had just missed it.

John nodded and sighed as he proceeded to tell his story.  "Well, I suppose I should start from the beginning, but before I do, you think it might be possible to continue this from a more…hospitable location?"

The two slayers grinned and led him back to their hotel, which ironically was the Baldwin Hotel on Plaza Street; the very hotel Giovanni was stationed under.  When they came to the hotel, and the two women explained that that was where they were staying, John just laughed out loud and shook his head at the wry amusement of it.

Once they were up in the ladies' hotel room, John stood while the two took seats to listen to him as he explained his history.

"First of all, my real name, or that is to say the name I was raised with and died with, is John Smith.  I _was_ a captain of one of her Majesty's Royal "Investment" ships.  I came over to the America's in the early 1600's and was the mayor of Jamestown for a spell." John waited for the usual exclamations of shock or surprise when he told somebody who he really was.  Most thought he had died in London in 1631.  Actually, he had just written off several biographies of the things he had done, and while he admittedly exaggerated in a few cases and definitely left some parts out of them, they had sold enough to get him started and get him passage back over here to America where anyone who knew him was dead and he could literally start fresh.

Fiona had a look of confusion on her face, obviously having no idea what that information meant and wondering why he wasn't continuing with the story.  Beth however, merely looked intrigued.

"Your John Smith?  The man that was pirate, slave, captain, leader, and beggar in his life?  The man that made the pact with Powhatan's tribe because of his daughter Pocahontas?" Beth asked.

Smiling at their indulgence, John merely nodded before continuing.  "The same.  While I was undoubtedly just as much an adventurer as any Immortal when I was but mortal, I'd like to think that I've kept up my reputation over the years.  I first died here in the Americas actually.  Virginia.  I doubt either of you would have heard the story, but supposedly, while I was out hunting, I came upon a plot of quicksand.  The story goes on to say that the Indian Princess, Pocahontas, who by the way was as much a princess if not more than what they say she was, came by and saved my life.  Well, actually…"

"You drowned, then you revived and came to the surface where she saw you and she pulled you out, thinking that you must have just fallen in," Beth finished for him.

Glaring, John withheld his grin and merely nodded the affirmative.  "I thought she actually had saved my life.  I didn't find out until much later, stopping some robbers, that I was any different.  We had a lot of trouble there in Jamestown, particularly with the greedier numbers of the inhabitants.  He stabbed me in the gut, and I woke up an hour later, a bloody mess, but otherwise completely healthy."

"They said you were taken back to England because you had injuries that couldn't be treated anywhere else.  Then Pocahontas followed you and became involved with a…John Rolfe?" Beth asked.

John nodded.  "Actually, I was on an adventure of sorts, mapping the New England waters.  I ran into some…unfriendly chaps and was forced to go home broke.  I wrote and sold my autobiographies to get enough money to come back to the Americas.  I sailed the week after the princess died of smallpox."

All three Immortals were silent as they felt the pain of lost friends.  Faith her Watcher, John a long lost friend, and Buffy…so many.

John finished up his story quickly after that, wanting to get to the "fun" part of the evening, when they would all get to slay some hell beasts.  "Well, moving on, I came back here, started fresh and became rather successful in the trade business, especially with the natives, as I more or less understood their standpoint on most issues.  I hopped back and forth between the Americas, England, India and China.  I tried to stay out of the Revolution, as they're calling it here, and just arrived in New York several months ago.  I run a rather impressive shipping company down by the docks."

Seeing the end of his story, Beth nodded and stood.  "Pleasure to meet you John.  I'm the first Vampire Slayer, and Fiona here, Faith in her last life, is the first ever Immortal Slayer.  Now would you mind telling me how you found out about vampires, not to mention Vampire Slayers?"

Seeing the glare she gave him, John tried to be as honest as possible with the hope that he would still have his head by the time he finished.  "I was killed by a vampire about thirty or so years ago in China.  I tried to fight him, but it was no use.  He muttered some nonsense, but I do remember him calling himself, _Spike_.  That's all I remember about it and then I was killed.  I woke up the next day and heard how a young girl was killed the same way I was in a temple not to far from where I was.  When I investigated further, I came across an Englishman who was grieving along with the girl's family.  This was pretty unusual for the times, so I got him drunk one night and asked him about it.  He told me everything.  Vampire Slayers, vampires in general, and then he explained what he was, a Watcher.  He spoke of the Watcher's Council, and how they controlled the Slayers' lives.  I only let him live because he was truly grieving as much as that girl's family was."

"I've tried to find out all I can about this Watcher's Council, but I haven't found much.  I suppose they're based in England, but everybody's lock-jawed over there, so I thought of trying my luck over here."

"Why do you want to know about the Watcher's Council?" Beth asked.  "Yeah, and why would you wanna whack that girl's Watcher anyways?" Fiona added.

John grimaced.  "Because of what he told me that bloody Council does.  They take innocent, young girls and strip them of their families, their lives, hell sometimes even their souls.  Turn them into killing machines overnight.  It's a travesty as bad, if not worse than some of the things they do in the more "barbaric" countries of the world.  Hell, even slaves in Arabia are treated better than those girls."

"I want to destroy the Council, if that's what you're asking.  Then I'm going to kill each and every Watcher that I come across, just to make sure that those girls are never used like that again."

Beth and Fiona were silent as they internally discussed what John had just told them.  _'Well, what do you think Faith?'_ Buffy mentally asked.

Faith was silent, just staring quietly at John, for a minute before answering in the same fashion.  _'I'm not sure.  I mean, everything and my Slayer sense says to trust this guy.  But he's got a lot of rage against the Council, and while I never much liked their orders, and you say they're just this side of being evil, all I have to judge them with is Linda, _my_ Watcher.  And this guy just said he'd kill any and every Watcher he comes across.  B, I loved Linda, and not all Watchers are gonna be bad.  Linda was more than willing to defy this Council to save me.  She took me to you.'_

Buffy thought it over and then turned back to John and gave him an encouraging look.  "Ok, I believe you John.  And I'm more than willing to let you help us clear out the vampires tonight.  We'll head downstairs and then into the sewers from there in about an hour.  If you need sleep, get it now.  I've got to go and prepare some more weapons.  And Fi," turning to Faith, "I want you rested, not _relaxed_.  Understand?"

Hiding a coy smile, Fiona nodded and then just scooted back and lay down on the bed in her street clothes.  John hid his own smile, as he understood what Beth was implying.  Nodding his agreement to the Teacher, he moved over to the other bed and lay down.  He was asleep almost immediately and would wake up in less than thirty minutes, used to having to get sleep when and how he could.

Buffy meanwhile went into the adjoined bathroom of the suite and removed a bag full of swords, axes, and above all, wooden stakes.  They were going to war, and they had an ally.  The Immortal Slayer smiled darkly as she began making plans for the evening.

TBC…

Disclaimer:  I am aware that not necessarily all historical alliterations made here are entirely factual, yet I have strived to make it as close to the truth as possible and still allow it to work with the story.  Please understand that this is a work of fiction, not a recreation or even a notation of true genuine historical facts.  This is mostly if not entirely, made up.  Thank you for reading and please continue to enjoy.  I love hearing what you think of my stories, so please make an entry in the Review.


	9. Chapter 9

Continued from Previous… 

Sunnydale CA, Chase Mansion 1999:

Buffy and Cordelia walked silently to the front door after parking the latter's car in its spot.  Once there, Buffy almost rung the doorbell, but Cordelia slapped her hand and gave her a mean glare.

"What are you trying to do?  Get me grounded for the rest of my life?  We will sneak in, I will go quietly into my nice, warm, soft bed, and you will leave.  You can either call a cab or walk home for all I care.  Right now I am so tired that I could actually sleep for the rest of my life." Cordelia whispered to the Immortal as she dug out her house keys.

Cordelia finally found them and fit them almost soundlessly into the lock and opened the door.  "I take it that you've done this before," Buffy quietly observed.  Cordelia only nodded her head, not saying anything, fearing the risk that somebody in the household would hear.

It was all for naught as in the next moments as the two women entered the foyer, they both heard the distinct, and unpleasant, sound of a male throat being cleared.  The blond and the brunette turned abruptly at the unexpected noise and both saw a sight that widened their eyes in fear and shock.

"Good morning ladies," Mr. Maxwell Chase greeted.  "Or should I say goodnight?  As you did not come home last night Cordelia.  Again.  You know, I've known that you have snuck boys into your room before, and in all truth, that was all right.  As long as you weren't getting into anything that you weren't supposed to.  And now I see…"

His eyes suddenly widened as he saw exactly _whom_ his only child had brought home with her.  At first glance, all he had seen was blond hair and a female figure.  Hoping that it was at the least a female friend, maybe Harmony, and fearing that it was his daughter's lesbian lover, a bit of an overreaction.  When he saw who it actually was, he began to think it might not be that much of an overreaction.

"Buffy…" Maxwell greeted stiffly.  She just gave him her charismatic grin that he had learned she liked to give to those that were her prey.

"Uhhhh…, Hi dad," Cordelia stuttered in greeting.  "Uhm, you-you remember B-buffy, don't you?"

"Hi Max," Buffy said after her introduction.

"Cordelia, go up to bed.  You look like hell." Maxwell told his daughter sternly.

"Thankyou!" Cordy gasped out and hastened up the stairs.  When she reached the top, however, she shouted back down, "HEY!  I'll have you know that I was up listening to old people talk all night!!"  Then she rushed to her room, stripped to her undies, crawled under the sheets and bedspread and was asleep instantly.

Maxwell sighed as he pointed his arm towards his study, in offering to Buffy.  The blond nodded appreciatively and closed the front door and followed the dark-haired businessman out of the foyer.

Maxwell Chase's office was actually rather comfortable, but not completely so.  He had a large modern black leather chair behind a Spartan desk, in front of which rested two uncomfortable looking chairs.  At best they could be called foldouts.  Behind the desk were various pictures, most of Cordelia and himself when she was much younger.  Others were of Cordelia with her mother, or the entire family, and a few with just Mr. And Mrs. Chase by themselves.  Yet one immediately struck Buffy's eye.  A group of elderly and middle-aged men, all standing together in a rather strict pose.

Buffy, as soon as she was in the beige wallpapered office, walked around the desk and plopped down into the large roll-around leather chair.  Maxwell saw this, but knowing whom he was dealing with, chose to ignore it for the moment, and chose to stand on the other side of his own desk.

"I take it the hunt went well last night Buffy?" Maxwell put forth, in hopes of starting a polite dialogue.

"Very," Buffy answered, "Some big ole demon creep that used to play the roles of Hansel & Gretal, mind-controlling the masses to turn against witches and the supernatural in general, thereby destabilizing the balance by wasting the knowledge needed to fight the true evils of this world.  Was pretty easy to beat, once we got its true form revealed that is.  Giles managed quite nicely to handle that, with your daughter's help I might add.  The problem came after the big bad was wasted.  A vampire tried to kill Willow with a knife." 

Maxwell's eyes lit up with horror.  "My God," he exclaimed silently.

Buffy just smiled, a little morosely, at him and continued.  "Oh, don't worry.  Faith got in the way before they could even get close to each other.  Unfortunately, _Faith_ was the one who died.  In front of everyone."

Maxwell considered the clue for several moments before speaking.  "So that's what my little Cordelia meant by staying up all night talking to _old_ people.  You told her the truth?"

Buffy nodded.  "The whole truth.  We have a meeting this afternoon to continue our discussion.  I'm staying here for the day to make sure that Cordelia isn't late and actually attends."

"That's not necessary.  I'm sure that I can…"

"She needs to be there Mr. Chase," Buffy interrupted.  "And yes, I know that you could quite easily convince your…"daughter" to keep her mouth quiet about Immortals.  After all, she kept the secret of vampires and demons secret from everybody else, even you.  Remember, _I_ was the one who finally had to tell you.  But Cordelia has to be at this meeting to not only understand that the fact and presence of Immortals must remain a very silent secret, but she must also understand what it is to _be_ an Immortal.  She…she has to."

Suddenly very suspicious of his "assignment" Maxwell stood straight and actually dared to look her in the eye.  "What do you mean?  Why?  Why does she even have to be near you and your group anymore?  Now that you've actually revealed that you know who…and what I am, we can just get together once a week for coffee to talk about…things.  As for your nightly activities, I'm sure that Mr. Giles is doing a wonderful job in that regard…"

"Have you told her?" Buffy snapped.

"Excuse me?" Maxwell had a look of utter confusion on his face.

"Have.  You.  Told.  Her?" she repeated more slowly.

Getting a sinking feeling in the bottom of his gut, Maxwell decided it would be best if he sat down.  So as he reached behind him and settled himself into the foldout, he asked, "Told her what?"

Buffy stared quite steadily into the Watcher's eyes and spoke very slowly and deliberately clear.  "That Cordelia Chase is adopted.  That she is neither yours nor Tracie's biological daughter.  That one day you both just went out, applied, and picked her from the orphanage nursery ward on N. Angel Drive in Los Angeles.  That she is…pre-Immortal."

Maxwell Chase was suddenly very glad that he had decided to sit down.  His breathing became irregular and his palms and forehead began to sweat like barnyard animals.  Buffy just sat back, passively watching his reaction.  Finally, after five or more minutes, he managed to gain enough control over himself that he could speak again, though the intense emotions he was feeling were quite evident.  "Could-could…could you please…press the…intercom button, call in…call my wife in, …please?"

Buffy nodded and did so.  Several minutes later, Tracie Chase walked into the office, looking quite happy in her "Saturday morning" outfit; a simple yellow silk blouse, black stretch pants made for lounging, and simple brown leather sandals.  No make-up yet.

"What can I do for you Max…well?" Tracie stopped when she saw a beautiful, young blond girl sitting in Maxwell's chair, while he himself sat in one of the uncomfortable "interrogation" chairs having what looked like a nervous breakdown.

"Sit down Tracie," Maxwell ordered.  She was so stunned by the sudden twist in her day that she instantly complied.

_*                                               *                                               *_

Joyce was just pulling up to Amy's house, her father's house.  She was also just finishing up telling how Buffy, John, and Faith had narrowly escaped the Vampire mafia's lair under their hotel.

"You are kidding me?!" Amy exclaimed in an excited voice.  "They crawled up the sewer pipes from the hotel into the basement!"

Joyce could only nod and smile at the exuberant teenager.  Amy started shaking her head in disbelief at the amazing tale that the original Celtic had told her.  The was that she and Buffy spoke of times past…it made her feel as if she were there, living it with them.  "You are an amazing storyteller Mrs. Summers" Amy told her elder, _'Boy is that the understatement of the millennium or what?'_ she mused.

Joyce actually blushed with the complement.  "Well thank you Amy, it was my pleasure to tell it to you.  And please call me Joyce," the Immortal replied.  "Well, this is your house Amy.  You don't have to come this afternoon if you don't feel like it.  I'm sure that when John comes to visit he'll tell you more stories than even I know.  Oh, and do Faith a favor by avoiding mentioning her name when or if you call John."

Amy smiled brightly, her eyes twinkling with mischief.  "Don't worry Joyce, he won't get nothing out of me," Amy vowed.  "But I think I will come by this afternoon.  Three you said?"

Joyce nodded.  "Three o'clock," she confirmed.

Joyce waited until the young witch was safely inside her house before backing out of the driveway and onto the street.  She immediately made course for her house and repeated her driving from earlier that morning and made it in record time.  Lucky for her that the local patrolmen weren't fully awake yet.

Joyce sighed as she got out of her jeep and walked into her house, not too surprised to see Faith already inside.  "Hey Mrs. S!" Faith greeted, her smirk evident in her voice even more than it was on her face.  "Hello Faith," Joyce tiredly answered before slumping upstairs and into her own bed.

"Geez, somebody's in a mood," Faith grunted under her breath.

_'For you information, _dear_,'_ Joyce telepathically reprimanded Faith, _'I have been up since three o'clock yesterday morning, I have been in a fight, I have been through my normal daily training regimen, and I have had to deal with the stress of explaining only _half_ of our secrets to yours and Buffy's friends!'_

_'I repeat, somebody's in a mood,'_ Faith shot back.  All she got in return was a sense of subconscious relaxation as Joyce drifted off to sleep the second her head hit the pillows.  Faith sighed herself and decided to wait for Buffy to get back before even trying to drift off herself.

She wandered into the kitchen and immediately began to raid the cabinets and fridge.  _Ooo, cookies!_

_*                                               *                                               *_

Buffy was glad that Tracie was at least accepting this better than Maxwell was.  But then, she guessed it was because she didn't even know about Immortals, or the Watchers, or what her husband really did and why she was really here.

"Honey," Maxwell started, "What I'm going to tell you is going to sound fantastic, but…you have to believe me, because its true."

"What is it Maxwell?" Tracie asked, concern deep in her posture.

Buffy took the time that Maxwell tried to explain the same thing that she had just been explaining to her friends to study him and his wife.  To say that it took a while would have been a gross understatement.  At least he wasn't distracted by having to tell ancient anecdotes that were caught in her memory.

Maxwell was almost the male version of Cordelia Chase, just older and with shorter hair.  He had slick black hair, handsomely styled on top of his, dark forest brown eyes, and a slightly tanned complexion that came more from being a Californian and appreciating the outside more than any heritage it might hint to.  Often, he was found in elaborate or just plain expensive business suits, and loved to flaunt as much money as he could easily afford to flaunt.  Ofcourse owning your own investment company has many benefits.  Buffy would know.

His wife, Tracie Chase, was a tall brunette with a much lighter complexion than Cordelia or Maxwell had.  She was about 5'11", a fact that briefly annoyed Buffy about her immortal shortness, had deep sea green eyes that at the moment were filled with concern, and disbelief, about her husband and daughter.  Her outfits were never the same.  Not often even in the same day.  Her hazel brown hair hung in long curly locks to her shoulders, which today she had let go free, though normally she might at the least accessorize something with it.

Finally, actually less than thirty minutes later, the longest thirty minutes that Buffy can remember since the end of the Cold War, Maxwell had finished his brief synopsis over Immortals, Watchers, and how it involved them.

"Maxwell…I, I can't believe you.  It's just too crazy!  You are telling me that you _watch_ this girl here because she's three thousand years old, and she just told you that our daughter, I'll admit, our _adopted_ daughter, is one of her 'kind' and will live forever unless some maniac with a sword kills her by decapitating them?" Tracie was approaching shrieking volumes.

"Actually some use axes," Buffy contributed to the conversation for the first time.

Tracie started as though she hadn't even realized that Buffy was there, which she probably hadn't knowing Chase's tendency for self-involvement.  Buffy was getting bored, and she didn't want to have to deal with the stress of explaining everything in detail, _again_, so she picked up the letter opener out of Maxwell's drawer.  If you've ever seen a real letter opener, then you know that it is almost entirely useless as a weapon, unless you can put enough force behind it to be so.  The sides are far too blunt.  That didn't stop Buffy from ramming it through her hand, between the bones.

Tracie just stared, wide-eyed.  Maxwell was still overcoming the shock of his daughter's potential, but Buffy could tell that he wasn't happy at the stunt she just pulled.  She didn't care, it hurt too much to care about anything else.  Yet from her posture and calmness, you'd think that she was clipping her fingernails.

Blood began to pool down Buffy's hand from the open wound, and Tracie knew than no Hollywood special effect could ever do something as real as that.  Buffy just agitated, as it was, the situation by jiggling the opener up and down a little, opening the wound even further.  Finally she pulled the bloodied instrument from her hand and held her palm out so that Tracie could see the "miracle" about to happen.

Tracie stared in total disbelief as the very bloody wound in the blond girl's hand was held in front of her.  Then her disbelief began to fade as there was a sudden spark.  The spark sprung up to become spark of lightning dancing around the wound.  At the first pass, the wound stopped openly bleeding, but still bled.  At the second, all bleeding stopped and the open wound was no closed.  At the third, new skin had grown, but it was still very agitatedly red.  The fourth and fifth passes left it much the same.  The sixth made it look like it would scar over, but by the eighth pass of the spark of lightning, there was nothing but healthy skin where once had been an open gash.  The blood was still there, drying now, but the wound was no more.

Buffy turned to Maxwell.  "You mind if I freshen up a bit?  I'll take the downstairs guest room if that's all right with you?"

Maxwell just nodded and waved his hand, "That's just fine.  Uhm, thank you for brining Cordelia home Buffy."

"No sweat.  A lot of blood sure, but no sweat," Buffy commented easily as she left the room.

"I need a drink," both Maxwell and Tracie Chase said as they stood and made to raid the liquor cabinets.  All of them.

FINIS…(for now) J

Authors Notes:             I've felt that for this story, it has continued enough.  I fully intend to continue this as a series and as a part of a whole, but in another story.  So there _will_ be a sequel and I will continue to write this.  Just under another title.  As hints go, it will be several weeks after this "nights" events when Amy's uncle John Madison comes to town, along with other problems that begin to arise.  Plus, and tell me if this is too much information that you want to know at this time, Cordelia's immortality is triggered, along with some others.

                        Now to address several…indiscrepancies that have been brought to my attention.  First, the Romans attacking the British Islands when Joy claimed to have lived there…it is true, the Roman Empire at that time was on the verge, if not already, of collapse.  Many suggested numerous tribes or regions of Vikings to take the place of invading and massacring army.  I really don't know much about that and couldn't find any specific information that I could use.  So for the time being, the passages of Joy's flashback and statements of the Roman Empire, or what remained of it, shall remain.  Besides, I did it mostly to go along with the episodes of Hercules: The Legendary Journeys when he was in Ireland, defending against Caesar, aka "the foreign stranger that was prophesied to come and help us by the elders of my tribe, the High Druids."  I think it was in the next to last season, when he was fighting Dahok, but before Iolas's revival J.  I've said it before and I will say it again, and maybe even again, I'm not a historian, I only write what I know, and for the most part that's TV, books and other entertainment.

                        If anybody has any questions, my e-mail is displayed on my "Author's Page" or you can just ask them in the 'Reviews', which I check daily.  Thank you for enjoying my fictions (J) and I hope to hear from you, either praise, questions, and I only stand proper flames, no cuss words or I just delete and ignore you.


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